


Soy El Fuego

by cobbvanth



Category: Narcos (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Dirty Talk, F/M, First Dates, Fluff, Halloween!AU, Light Voyeurism, Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex, Overstimulation, Phone Sex, Praise Kink, Semi-Public Sex, Slightly dubious @ some points, Smut, Some Humor, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:21:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28227579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobbvanth/pseuds/cobbvanth
Summary: collection of stories and one-shots for the Narcos boys
Relationships: Horacio Carrillo/Reader, Javier Peña/Reader, Steve Murphy/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 64





	1. downward slope | Javier Peña x Fem!Reader

Javier’s- 

He - 

_**Fuck.** _

He really shouldn’t be here right now. It’s bad enough that he still feels it - the _want_ , the _ache,_ sinking and swaying in his stomach in a way that makes him clench his jaw because he should have more self control than this - but he’s selfish and greedy and even though the very last thing you want is to see him again he can’t resist the urge to just _be here_ \- and it’s even worse when he does things like _this._

Javier realized his mistake after he left your apartment three weeks ago. He should have fucking seen it coming because historically the second any kind of emotional bomb drops he goes sprinting for the hills - leaves situations open for bad decisions and misunderstandings and finds that he’ll come up with any excuse to get drunk enough to smash things and ruin everything. 

But then it started seeping into his work - had already been slipping and working its way into his foundations long before he made himself consciously aware of it - poisoning every interaction because he can’t fucking hold himself back anymore. Unsettling fury bubbles to the surface of every disagreement, every frustration and bad outcome - every shootout and pursuit fueled by this desire to just get it over with already; to be done with the endless chasing and investigations, the fucking limitations of bureaucracy and the corruption of politics (not that he has much room to wax poetic about _any of this_ because he used these faults more than once to his advantage). 

So he goes running across sheet metal roofed buildings, starts needless arguments, orders too much whiskey at a bar he’s growing to loath, works with the goddamn Los Pepes, and gets himself _fucking shot_ because these are the things that make him feel like his life isn’t just some uncontrollable nightmare circus he can’t wake up from. 

He goes walking up to the door of your apartment, stands in front of it and wills himself to knock because, just like with everything else, he can’t stop himself. 

There’s no reason you’d want to see him again. You had made it pretty clear that after he failed to reciprocate your feelings, whatever things existed between you two should end - if they really existed at all since they obviously weren’t shared - and that it’s best the both of you move on to something different. 

Which was - _fuck,_ it was _fine_ , really, because that’s what he wanted all along, right? He isn’t good at these kinds of things and it was doomed from the start and his life just doesn’t allow shit like that, so it worked out - it worked out and he’s finally free from the burden of your love and now he can move on to the next fuck and further his career by sleeping with informants or prostitutes until eventually he’s so valuable because of his ability to make women fall just a little in love with him he can mingle authentically with bigger brass or until Escobar’s dead and then it’s a one way ticket back to Texas, back to a life he had been desperately escaping, _except that isn’t how it’s actually going at all._

He’s here, riding the crest of his denial until it subsides from his consciousness. He’s here and he shouldn’t be, but he is weak and wanting and his fist is rapping against your door anyway and there’s a knot in his throat - feeling more anxious than he has in years with a heart like candle wax, constantly melting. 

He hadn’t even brought fucking flowers, not that he thinks you would have accepted them anyway - you’re not that type of person and he isn’t the kind of man to go buying shit that’ll be dead and rotting and thrown out in two weeks - but he’s struck with the horror that he could have at least done _something_ other than shown up empty handed and with no plan other than predicting that maybe he’d be able get your name out before you shut the door in his face. 

And like a fucking idiot he begins to search his pockets, as if they harbor some secret gift even he isn’t aware of that’ll be the key to winning you back, but all he pulls out is a fucking piece of mint gum and a crumbled receipt charging him in monospaced sans serif a dollar seventy-one in U.S. currency for a pack of cigarettes. And he’s so caught up in what he’s doing he doesn’t notice that you’re standing there looking at him now, holding the door jamb between your thumb and the rest of the fingers - posed to send it flying shut should the need arise, looking up at him in irritated confusion and infinite sadness. 

You had loved him, _still love him_ , and this is what he had done with it. You can’t understand why he’s here. 

“What do you want, Javier?” You had just been recovering, life finally returning to some normalcy; you even stopped catching yourself thinking about him, and now he’s here and you’re bitter again, the wound he’d given you just starting to scab over split open and renewed; oozing fresh blood. 

Javier anticipated the anger, doesn’t even flinch when it hits him as he looks at you, unable to prevent the way his gaze softens in sympathy, even if it might make things worse. You have every right to be pissed off. It’s the exhaustion in your voice that catches him off guard, makes his heart lurch with guilt. Christ, he never wanted any of this for you. 

“Would you believe me if I said I forgot my socks?” He offers, his idea of a joke hanging in the air for a few tense, taut seconds as you just stare at him, unreacting, making him chuckle humorlessly then scrub his face, looking down at the awful carpeting the lines the hallway underneath his feet. 

“I wanted to see you, but um - I’m…” he pauses, and his mouth must be going just the slightest bit dry because he clears his throat then sucks in a deep breath and scratches his chin before exhaling, sounding just as tired as you do, “realizing now what a bad fucking idea this is.” 

“Yeah,” you scoff softly, past the tight little fist that constricts your vocal cords in your esophagus. “No kidding.” 

You like to pretend now that you didn’t need him, haven’t missed him, situated at that numbing threshold right after heartbreak when it becomes easier to just shut yourself off to the pain of it than feel it in its full force - to distance yourself, thicken your skin, and act like no matter what role he had in your life, the gap of his absence can easily be filled. The night he left you deep cleaned your apartment, shoved everything that reminded you of him as far as it would go into the junk drawer right next to your oven where all your other needless items go to be forgotten; buried beneath old recipe cards and take-out menus, some chop-sticks and a few of those bread twist ties. And when you ran out of room, when the drawer was filled to the point of barely opening, the rest went in the trash, and you resolutely promised yourself to forget that these things ever existed. 

And for a while it made you feel better, even as you fought the itch to dump its contents and go through them one more time while cooking - hoping foolishly that reminiscing would somehow bring back the happiness they had once harbored, as if any of it would be authentic anymore; as if it were the things that actually mattered and not the fact that he was the one who had given them to you - as if _he_ wasn’t the ones giving them that power. 

You want so badly to be annoyed that he’s here and part of you is; a pretty sizable chunk, actually, you just wish it were _bigger_ , able to eclipse that parts of you that long to be near him because seeing him again, hearing his voice, it’s reminding you that nothing is that simple. That getting over this - _him_ \- isn’t as easy as forgetting. And you want to go to him, step through your doorway and into his space and be close to him and it’s confusing because it’s not all of you but the parts that he’s hurt, feeling like a confused and wounded animal seeking comfort in the jaws of the very thing that had caused the injuries in the first place. 

So when he noticed you answered and had been standing there looking at him, you like to imagine that his exhale was like a punch to the gut, that it must have hurt just a little, even though you could nearly hear and see and _feel_ the way his breath left his body because it’s exactly the kind of reaction you had, too - the relief of an invisible pressure. 

“Can I come in?” 

“Are you fucking serious, Javi?” You shift your weight, tightening your hold on the door frame, fingernails chipping at some of the dark brown paint flaking away from the wood. You can’t even handle this without feeling like you’re drowning. 

“I know that you might hate me and I don’t blame you because if I were you I’d hate me too, but I just wanna have a conversation.” He placates, knowing it probably won’t be enough. 

“What is there left to talk about? You made it pretty clear how you felt.” 

“Just give me a couple of minutes, okay? And if you don’t want to deal with my bullshit anymore after that I’ll leave you alone. I promise.” 

You set your jaw, weigh the pros and cons of letting him inside. He’d taint everything you’ve worked to scrub clean, undo all the hard work you’ve done of erasing him from every inch of your apartment the second his shoes hit the wooden flooring of your entryway and then, just like that, you’d be right back where you started - hurting and alone and surrounded by too many things that he’s touched. 

But the piece of you that resists is fragile, delicate and liable to crack under the weight of your belief that maybe, by some miracle, this’ll end in something being fixed - tempting you with progress and love, only fearful that you might not be brave enough to bear it. 

“Okay,” you concede, stepping to the side and opening the door wider before turning and walking past your bathroom, past picture frames and a lightswitch, the hallway feeling entirely too narrow than it had before as you head towards your kitchen, not bothering to see if he’ll follow. “10 minutes.” 

The low hanging light fixture just above your dining table blankets your bodies in a cold, dim orange glow, casting the shape of your silhouettes along the walls and when you notice them you wonder, briefly, if they’ll be having this conversation too and if it’ll be easier for them - for things that cannot talk, cannot possibly bruise each other the way people are so good at doing. 

“I miss you.” He begins, voice shot-through and hoarse. “And I’ve, uh, I’ve been working on it - on being better.” 

You blink. 

“What the fuck is that supposed to even mean, Javier?” You bite, looking at him in disbelief. 

Javier pauses, slides his palm along the smooth surface of the counter then leans against it and makes a gesture with his hand as if he’s going to explain what he meant, but decides at the last second to only bring his knuckles to his lips and sigh - curbing his frustration. When he first stepped inside, he expected things to be different - look different, at least, for whatever reason, but everything is the same. Your furniture. Your decorations. More distant, yes, less welcoming, but still just as he had remembered. The worst part, though, is that it’s still so familiar that it makes him feel like he’s intruding. This is your space - still smells like lavender and pears and lemon cleaner and grass on a sunny day, and he remembers how warm it can be, how comforting, acutely aware he’s sucking life out of the atmosphere of it now. 

So he stops himself, gives a little because he knows you’re just waiting to ask why he keeps taking and taking and taking when you’ve already given so much. 

When he doesn’t offer an explanation, you close your eyes and roll your lips together, quietly willing yourself not to ruin whatever potential this has - if it has any at all. Your irritation, although legitimate, is unfounded right now. You let him in to talk, you’re the one allowing him to stand here knowing you could have just as easily told him no. You can’t go changing your mind just because you don’t like what you’re hearing - can’t stand in the fire and complain that it is hot. 

“I’m sorry. I’m just trying to hold it together.” You sigh, leaning against the back of one of your kitchen chairs, your hands behind you gripping the top rail. “Seeing you isn’t easy for me.” 

“Yeah,” Javier agrees under his breath. “Yeah, I know, uh -” 

He nods as he clears his throat again, then looks at you, finding it harder to maintain his train of thought. “Anyway, it hasn’t been as easy as I thought it’d be. I’m still trying to figure shit out and I can’t expect you to trust me, not after what I did, but I’m doin’ my best and I’d like to show you that things would be better. That _I_ can be better.” 

You grit your teeth, trying to ignore your anger, instantaneous and burning a searing hole in your chest, and the way his voice makes it feel like there are pockets of air where you thought there had been walls, or cabinets, your microwave and drawers - all of them suddenly becoming vacuums and inversions in space as if his words were black holes, dense and all consuming. Couldn’t he have tried to be better while he was with you? Couldn’t he have tried before he broke your heart? 

“I still don’t know what that means. _What is better?_ ” You demand, your act of abnegation placing you outside of him for a brief enough moment that you can’t understand what he’s talking about. 

Javier stands up straighter, feels as if something is expanding from deep within his chest. You don’t know what it means because he didn’t let you see it. You don’t know how he’s worked to cut back on his drinking, dumped amber bottle after amber bottle down the sink until there wasn’t a case of beer left in his fridge. Or his cigarettes - you haven’t seen those either; how he’s cut down to a pack a day instead of what he’s usually been smoking; two, typically, three on a bad night - leaving his hands trembling from the withdrawal and his eyes a little more exhausted. 

You didn’t see it when he was standing in front of his bathroom sink, gripping the porcelain, looking at three versions of himself in the mirror and finally admitting to himself that the unutterable emptiness of his denial will never be better than the comforting opacity of loving you. 

Another pause. 

“I’m in love with you.” 

You feel your blood, like windburn, hot and prickly redden your face. 

_Say it again, it’ll keep me awake._

“Javier, _what?_ ” You cross your arms, growing defensive, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for him to immediately take it back, admit that he didn’t mean it. 

“And I couldn’t say it earlier because I’m a fucking idiot who made up excuses to be afraid.” 

He steps closer as you suck in a breath, his expression dark and riddled with longing and want and pain coupled with a kind of desperation you had no idea he was even capable of feeling. 

“I don’t…but you…?” Your head is fucking _spinning_ , your throat cracked dry, his words knifelike, cutting through your ties to the world and any coherency you might have harbored. 

“And I’m not saying it to make you feel guilty or make you take me back, either, and I don’t know, maybe coming here was my shitty idea of getting closure, but I thought that you should know. That I hadn’t meant to hurt you, even though I know that’s what I did.” 

Javier closes the last remaining space between you, reaches out a hand to touch you, hesitates like he’s trying to decide if you’ll let him touch your cheek before settling on the soft curve of your shoulder, his palm warm and heavy and familiar and _it’s_ \- _he’s_ too much. And now he’s touching you again and it’s like he never left and it’s so overwhelming that you almost miss his apology and the way he sounds so _wrecked_ , like he wasn’t the one to ruin everything. 

_“I’m sorry honey.”_

The syllables draw your thoughts out of your head and hold you down to earth at the same time. One look. One question. An invitation to come inside. Boiling frustrations and semi-conscious affection. And _this_ \- this confession, this explanation, whatever it is - is enough to make it hard to breathe. Everything too recklessly intimate to be permitted to say out loud, yet spoken anyway. 

You want to ask him so many questions; if he had meant it, if he isn’t just acting on lonely impulse, and there are questions you want to ask yourself, too. Are you so greedy for his love that you would ignore the lessons your history has taught you? 

Are you foolish enough to let the frantic ache behind your sternum started by his arrival continue burning a hole through something inside of you, something important that’ll most definitely be missed? Maybe, you don’t know, aren’t even capable enough right now to make a distinction between the good kind of ache and the bad; so you tilt your head and meet his gaze and it’s like some sort of mechanical lock _clicks_ in place as Javier reaches up, brushes some of your hair away from your face, his expression concentrated, open. A moment of delicate equilibrium. And maybe there isn’t an excuse for his behavior, maybe it’s just _him_ , and perhaps you’ll end up regretting this immensely except right now you don’t care - ready and willing to take anything he gives you because you got a taste of what your life is like without him in it and although it is quiet and calm and _safe_ it is far from peaceful. 

So this kiss is everything you needed, everything you had pictured in varied shades of emotion when you allowed yourself the reprieve of daydreaming - imagining scenarios not exactly like this in which he came back to your apartment or you came to his or even some in which you accidentally bump into each other at a random outlet store or a farmer’s market, the impression of him against your back with every move that you made in real life, too - waiting for you to look over your shoulders and see him standing there. A piece of pathetic, depressing performance art. 

Javier’s lips brush against yours and you make a sound, a gasp or a shaky release of the breath you’ve been holding, turning over control to the coil of warmth that has settled in your stomach as he places both palms on your cheeks, relaxing and kissing you back - again and again and again as if you’re prone to crumble or disappear at any moment beneath his hands. 

Your fingers stumble across his chest, catch at his jacket and at the buttons of his shirt like you’re not exactly sure what to do with them and he moves closer in response, sheds it and tosses it onto the table, the zipper hitting against the mahogany with sharp crack. 

Then he’s saying your name, rough and low and worshipful, like its a prayer in which no other words exist or something equally as reverent, your slushed brain coasting over the meaning behind it and the way he repeats it until finally he’s pulling himself away, leaving you to follow; confused and indignant and when you open your eyes and see his face - scan it and take in the way it’s pinched with worry and remorse, the beginnings of your righteous constraint begins to build like magma in your breastbone. 

“Of course,” you scoff, nearly laughing at yourself - wanting to laugh, almost, because if you can laugh at something it can’t break your heart. “I’m such a fucking idiot.” 

You bat at him, smack at his forearms and fight against the way he’s trying to catch your wrists, alarmed with this sudden shift, saying something like _stop it_ or _enough_ , commands you’re only half-paying attention to before you manage to get your palms up against his chest and _shove_ , your anger only growing when he steps back on his own, briefly holding his hands up in surrender as he watches you reach for and rip his coat off the table before they’re flying to field it when you throw it at him as hard as you can. 

“I can’t believe I let you back in here. You know, I even believed what you were saying, too. _God,_ you always fucking do this. I can’t understand why that after all the shit you’ve put me through I haven’t learned my lesson.” Your heart twists with anguish, sour disgust setting your solar plexus on fire, the tiny part of you that actually hates him bristling. 

“No, no, **hey**!” He shouts, frustration bursting in his chest, catching the fabric then reaching for your arm as you head towards the door, his fingers catching your elbow. “Would you just wait a minute? I’m not- honey, stop.” Javier tugs you harshly towards him. “Listen to me for a fucking second.” 

You round on him again, face flushed, eyes hard and wild and shining. “Why should I do anything you say to me, Javier? I gave you your ten minutes, which was more than you fucking deserved, and you fucked it up. Now you want me to just listen to you? Just like that?” 

Javier makes a fist around the collar of his jacket, the leather scrunching. “Goddammit, (y/n).” 

He exhales sharply through his nose, casting his gaze momentarily to the floor, then lets go of your arm when he’s sure you’re not about to do anything, his free hand moving to rest on his hip, speaking heavy and serious. “Part of my, uh, ‘doing things better’ is not rushing head first into situations, mostly ones like this, and uh, kissing you - _christ_ , I know where that leads and I can’t bring myself to give you another reason not to trust me.” 

You get it, abruptly, why he had pulled away. 

It’s always a slippery slope with him; not that he creates the fallacy directly or on purpose, but because he has the ability to make things just _escalate_. He gets harder to resist and things get messy and convoluted and he doesn’t want that for you tonight - doesn’t want you thinking that he had come here under the pretext of apologizing only to sleep with you one last time. 

So you deflate, bring your fingers to your mouth and pinch at your bottom lip with your thumb and forefinger, a habit you picked up to keep yourself from crying - to keep the rising tide of your tears from becoming more than just a gentle crest, trapped in a silence that feels like it stretches across all of time. 

“Oh.” You say very, very softly - quiet and dazed and lost. 

Oh. 

His words aren’t exactly a promise - not at all, actually, because promises are too binding and dangerous and wholly unachievable even with a person’s best efforts, especially with his, but they’re something adjacent, just slightly to the left of one; devotion, perhaps, effort, even. Meaning built like honeycombs within the structure of his intentions, the buzzing of bees straining to be heard over the sound of his regret. 

“Yeah,” he agrees. 

You had been whispering, but the sound feels oddly too loud, floating in the space between your bodies and interrupting the solidness in your conviction, in your renewed animosity. Mixed with such sadness that you feel hollow, wordless. A beat of silence passes, the quiet not exactly strained, not exactly comfortable, either. 

“I don’t know what to say, Javi…” 

“You don’t have to say anything. I didn’t come here to make you feel obligated to talk to me. I just wanted you to listen, and you did, so I should, uh-” Javier sniffs, swipes at his nose and grips his jacket a little tighter, the need for a cigarette or a fucking drink - _both_ \- getting harder to ignore. “I should go.” 

Your first thought is to say that he shouldn’t. 

Your second is to keep your mouth shut. 

You love him, and he loves you, but you’re still unsure if that’s enough for him to be in your life. If he had said this to you two weeks ago, or seven days ago, or hell, sometime before the last fifteen minutes, you would have told him to stay without question - without hesitation. And it’s stilted and stammered and _wrong that you’re suddenly so aware of yourself_ , the way a sensation can be when it happens too fast to be understood. Where rests the point of your sudden maturity? Had Javier forced its growth? 

Your third is you hate that you’re hesitating. 

There’s a level of objectivity that’s lacking in your relationship - when you were together and now, in the tattered remains of it. An unspoken closeness and a wordless understanding. Even as something fundamental in you and Javier’s understanding of each other shifts, becomes less murky and more lucent. Which makes it hard to make this decision, to tell him to go or not, because you’re almost certain you’re not going to find it - _this_ , whatever it is - with anyone else. 

“I’m not-” You say finally, and you have to swallow to unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth, your sentence threatening to dry or up just disappear somewhere in your throat. “ _I won’t_ ,” you try again, voice wavering with dangerous emotion, “be able to handle it if you leave…not a second time.” 

He says your name, uncertain and full of pity and so fucking _sad_ that you can’t stand it, and you’re about to say something else - something like he can go if he wants to, you don’t need him to feel guilty about it, except you don’t get the chance because he’s stalking towards you and his coat is gone again, but he misses the table and it hits the floor and neither of you care enough about it to pick it up, or anything material at all right now, really, as he gathers you in his arms and kisses you like he means it; like he can’t bear to see the expression on your face in more detail. And as his hands slide up under your shirt, it feels different. Not because he is or you are but because everything else is; as if the universe had lined up and decided that something good was finally going to come out of heartbreak instead of ending in tragedy. 

Javier urges you close that it’s more like a suggestion than anything else, his touch just as you had remembered it - rough and warm and calloused and this time you don’t think about how they got to be that way or what that means for him because he’s kissing you again and the tone of it’s changed; more hungry now, _relieved,_ as his tongue slides along your bottom lip. 

You kiss him back harder because it’s easier than crying, it’s easier than words, and he makes a muffled, sort of surprised sound as he backs you towards the bar, the marble cool and solid through your t-shirt. 

He threads a steady hand through your hair and you don’t really process how your fingers move automatically to his belt, fumbling with it, the buckle clinking as you work it apart just enough to get to where you’re really after - your hands making quick work with the button of his pants. And he’s moving his free hand down between your legs, flattening the curve of his palm over your underwear and leaning away to pepper kisses careening down the column of your neck, looking at you like you think he’s supposed to, like maybe he always has, the same way you probably look at him. 

You grind against him with a needy sigh, braced on his forearms, nails digging into the tanned skin and muscle like he’s the only thing anchoring you to this earth. And he knows without you telling him, the sudden thrum of awareness that shocks through your body, a bright live wire thing that makes it feel like at any moment you might lose yourself completely, so he nudges your panties to the side, works a finger inside of you and _curls_ it, his thumb finding the bundle of nerves just above the entrance of your cunt - then adds another until you’re panting against his jaw, his presence warm and raw and honest, all consuming in a way that has you realizing you had forgiven him long before he ever needed forgiving.

Cell by cell you slip away, then resurrect. And you tell him that you love him, wishing the words would somehow help fix everything, that when this was over things would be okay, just so that you don’t have to hear the undercurrent of self-loathing in his voice anymore. He had hurt you and it was unfair, but it’s fine now. _You’re fine_ , in a way you can’t understand, in a way that makes everything seem small and insignificant in comparison to what you harbor in your heart for him.

Javier pushes into you with one long thrust, watches the way it sinks into you, spreading you open; warm and wet and tight as your muscles clench around the width of it, of _him._

He groans as you gasp, your fingers flexing against him like they’ve got nothing to do, nowhere to go, the sensation of being filled and consumed bordering on devastating, tripling exponentially in its ruin as you arch your hips and press down on him, sending bright flickers of pleasure through your belly and up your ribs. 

His first real thrust makes your breath catch - hitch, dissolve into something that might have ended up being words, but quickly end up becoming a trembling, high-pitched moan, your eyes fluttering closed and your mouth parting and he’s - 

He’s fucking struck dumb by it. 

By you. 

And he’s pretty sure his fucking _soul_ careens with shame, makes him wonder what the fuck is wrong with him that he ever could have possibly hurt you so bad, ever could have possibly convinced himself that he wasn’t in love with you. And the thought of hurting you again makes something split open in his chest, makes him not even want to think about it, not later and especially not now. 

So he finds himself cursing, too undone to think, too undone to even try, fucking - _gone_ pretty much save for the way he says your name, honey-sweet and broken, and the way he focuses on your aborted, little-half movements like you’re trying to get used to him again, used to this, being close and touching each other as the world starts to pin-point with alarming speed down the shuddering muscles where your bodies meet. 

You squirm against him, the counter digging into your back, his chest hot and suffocating and all you want - all you _need_ \- is for him to move a little faster than he is, his cock stroking into you smooth and dragging as syrup, the rhythm unbearably slow. 

“Javi-” 

Your voice cracks with a whine, snaps him out of it, and he’s eager to make it better, to ease the grief he had caused, shushing you in a low, calming, gentle voice that makes your throat constrict and your eyes sting and suddenly you’re blinking at him through blurry vision, the weight of your emotion so intense you can hardly stand it. 

“Shh, shh. I got you. I’m right here.” 

Then he’s kissing your forehead, your eyelids, your cheeks. Deliberately. With purpose. _On purpose_. Worshiping you the way he should have been from the beginning. 

“I love you.” 

_God,_ you love him too. Love him so much. 

Javier rocks into you, presses his mouth to your temple, the head of his cock brushing that one spot inside you again and again until you’re tensing and crawling your hands up his arms, your delicate fingers gripping at his shirt sleeves, every little gasp and moan and fucking invocation that tumbles from your lips making his next thrusts a little rougher, a little harder and its getting more difficult to hold himself back, to keep himself from drowning in the bruising pressure of his cock deep inside your cunt and the way you flutter around him.

But his palm is moving to the back of your right thigh anyway, gripping, hitching up and maneuvering until the foot you have on the ground is on its tip-toes, until the angle is enough to wrench a helpless, hissing groan from between his clenched teeth, until you’re grinding into him and tightening around his cock, his body catching on fire as sweat makes his hair stick to his forehead and you’re face is flushed a pretty rosy red, your cheeks hot with blood. 

He isn’t going to last much longer and neither are you, but that’s okay because this doesn’t have to be drawn out, it doesn’t have to be tortuously built up. It just has to feel good and fuck this is the best he’s felt in three weeks. 

So when you bury your face in his shoulder, so close that you’re shaking with it, he doesn’t try to prolong anything - finds your clit and rubs tight, slick circles over it until every pretty sound that comes out is strained and incoherent, until you’re grabbing at his wrist, overstimulated and tightening around his cock and drawing noises from deep within his chest and then he’s kissing you, but it’s not really a kiss and more like a shared closeness, shared breathing, his nose nudging yours and your mouths brushing against each others, his cock throbbing inside you, your quivering urging him on and _fucking christ -_

He relaxes, braces himself against the bar to keep himself from crushing you beneath his weight, and lowers his forehead to your shoulder as he tries to catch his breath. 

You close your eyes, card your fingers through his hair, then bring them to his back, fingertips gliding up and down as his thumb brushes back and forth against your thigh. 

You stay like that for awhile, just breathing, touching, until the feel of him still inside you makes you wince, then he’s pulling away and tucking himself back into his pants, helping you clean up then fixing your shirt, your underwear. Intimate. Still. Before kissing you, lingering and visceral flushed.

“I meant what I said.” He speaks, blending with the calm instead of breaching it, looking into your face, gaze going back and forth between your lips - still red and raw and swollen from kissing you - and your eyes, his own somber, his brow pinched. 

“I know.” You reply delicately, reaching up to trace his brow bone with your thumb, trying to relieve the wrinkle between them. 

“It won’t be like it was, I won’t let it.” Javier repeats anyway, grabbing your fingers and bringing your wrist to his lips, kissing the inside of it gently. 

You smile, crooked and sleepy and cup his cheek. “I know that too.” 

“But if I don’t, then what?” 

Javier smiles back just a little, chuckles and then sighs as if he’s remembering something, his smile growing, wry and sort of wicked, and you understand once he speaks that he’s grinning that way because he knows it’s true. 

“Then Steve will probably kill my ass, saying Connie doesn’t beat him to it.” 

You bark out a laugh like drinking lemonade; sugary sweet and surprised, but mixed with tart mirth, amused with his admission. “I love you.” 

“I love you too.” 


	2. cider sweet hallways | Javier Peña x Neighbor!Reader

“Hey, neighbor. Happy Halloween.” Your soft voice travels from across the hallway, gentle and unassuming, and it makes Javier look up from his keys. 

You’re standing at your front door, yellow bags from the grocery store a few blocks down the street in your hands, filled with different candy varying from chocolate bars to bubble gum. 

“Hey…” he greets back, folding his keys into his palm, smiling easily. “Happy Halloween.” 

The two of you look at each other for a few more seconds. This is how it usually goes, brief encounters filled with something unnamable in the hallway between your front doors. That’s the thing about places like this, places so personal and impersonal. They become vortexes of their own, entire little universes in which he can allow himself to indulge in the domesticity and humanness of meeting his neighbor, most of the time on accident - he has a suspicion that sometimes it isn’t - talking to her, not about his job or why he’s in Colombia, or really anything about him at all, but about the small things. About how it’s annoying you have to feed the washing machine pocket change even though rent is ridiculous already. About the creaky stairs. About your other, more annoying, neighbors. 

Moments that feel like looking at a polaroid, watching as it slowly develops. The kind of snapshots that tell stories. 

Javier goes to look away. You roll your bottom lip between your teeth before speaking, rushed with sudden courage. 

“You have any plans for tonight?” The question falls out of your mouth before you can really help it, but there’s no taking it back, not that you want to - it’s just that things are weird with Javier. Not weird in a bad way, or in a way you don’t like, but weird in that there always seems to be something that neither of you are brave enough to say out loud, that neither of you are brave enough to point out. 

Javier rubs his mouth with his other hand, looks down at the floor and laughs a little at himself. Most of his Halloween’s recently have been spent doing particularly non-Halloween things. For years, it’s just been another day - one where he might snort at the warnings parents give to their kids about finding drugs in their basket, every year without fail, because the last thing a drug dealer would do is give their profit away for free. He’s evenings have blurred together, no longer differentiated by things like time or holidays, the passage of time marked by how close they’re getting to catching Escobar, seemingly moving in reverse when something fails. 

Before that, in the States, he might have spent the holiday with his family. His nieces and nephews and little cousins skirting around his legs, excited to go out, dressed in their costumes, standing outside on the porch waiting for the siren to go off at seven with their faces painted, pillow cases held tightly between their small fingers. 

“No, I uh-I was actually just gonna catch up on some work I have to do.” He explains. “What about you?” 

You hold up the bags and the plastic crinkles, beaming with excitement. “Passing out candy.” 

Javier chuckles, glances down at the keys in his hands, speaks at the same time you do. “Sounds fun. Have a good night-” 

“You should pass it out with me-” 

You both flush. Javier rolls his lips between his teeth and clears his throat. You look away from him, down the corridor, maybe hoping that some monster or serial killer will come running down it and save you both from the awkward tension beginning to build. 

“Only if you want to, I mean…” You trail off in an effort to fix what you’ve managed to make nearly unbearable. With more and more frequency, the little meetings you have with Javier are becoming less like friendly chats and more like the testing grounds for a more serious conversation. You’re used to his flirting, used to flirting back, but what you aren’t familiar with is the way your heart races at seeing him now. What had started out as amusing is swiftly morphing into holy shit, I think I actually like you. 

And you think it might be the same for Javi, too. 

“I do happen to have a pair of witch hats…” You add, and Javier looks at you fully, notices the way you’re trying to hide just how hard you want to smile and it makes his heart fucking like - hiccup - with affection. 

“Well, now that you mention the witch hats…” He jokes, blowing air out of his mouth as if it’d be an impossible proposition to decline, becoming a little more serious as he smiles back at you, his eyes and expression softening. “How could I say no?” 

You have to physically restrain the surge of excitement that makes your breath catch. Part of you feels silly, feels naive and stupid for crushing so hard, for being this thrilled that the dude who lives across the hallway from you and probably drinks a little too much agreed to pretty much hang out with you tonight, but the other part, the bigger and much more forgiving part of you, is just happy that you’re able to provide him with the company. From what little he’s told you, and from what you’ve gathered yourself, he doesn’t have anyone down here. No family. Some friends, maybe, if people from work count. Definitely some enemies. But for the most part, he’s alone. Isolated. 

That’s probably why these stupid little rendezvous matter so much. It’s why you linger outside your door for a second when you get home, pretending you can’t get your key to unlock it, waiting for the sound of his footsteps as he comes up the steps. 

“Great. Just give me one second.” You step inside your apartment, leaving the door open, and Javi sort of just stands there and watches, notes that even just from the entryway your apartment is warm, inviting, safe. A place like home. 

You come back out with a bowl, one of the hats already on your head, the other one in your hand. 

“Here’s your hat.” You hand it to him and he takes it, maneuvers it and tries to get it to sit properly until you laugh, and he stops and exhales and laughs at himself too. 

“Do you need some help?” You ask, mirth in your voice. 

‘Yeah, thanks.” Javier ducks his head, looks up into your face as you work to make sure the hat stays on his head, watches as your expression pulls into sincere concentration. You two have never been this close before and he wants to - he won’t but he wants to - get closer, stand up straighter and lean down. 

But then you’re leaning away, examining your hard work. “There. Perfect. Let’s go.” 

The evening air cools as the sun begins to go down and the streetlights turn on. You sit down on the steps outside the apartment complex and pat the space next to you, inviting him to sit. The first group of trick or treaters are already making their way down the sidewalk, and you greet them with sweet excitement, commenting and complimenting their costumes while placing a few pieces of candy into each of their pillow cases. 

Javier finds himself watching again for a second time, studying your profile, only registering that he’s smiling too when his cheeks begin to ache. 

“You’re good at this.” He murmurs once the kids and their parents have gone. The night is quieter now, colder, your bodies so close that he can feel the heat of your arm against his. 

You look down into the half empty bowl in your lap, then over at him. “The kids need something normal, I think.” You begin to explain, knowing that if anyone understands, he might. “With all that’s going on…with Escobar…” 

Javier looks out into the street and nods. 

“Things are dangerous, and scary, and so if I can make them happy, make them forget for just a little while and let them feel like kids again, then I will.” 

“You’re a good person.” He says suddenly. “I hope you know that.” 

You smile again, but this time it’s tainted with something else, something more bittersweet. You push around the candy, then grab a piece and nudge his shoulder with your own, sure that you’ve got his attention before offering him it and saying: 

“You are too, Javi.”


	3. the warmth of doorways | Steve Murphy x Fem!Reader

“I hate that we can’t see each other.” You twist the phone cord around your knuckles, chewing the inside of your bottom lip, phone tucked between your cheek and your shoulder as you slide a little further beneath your sheets, limbs dragging, eyes fixed on your bedroom door as if, by speaking this lament into the world, it would take pity on you and allow your husband to pass its threshold; his familiar footsteps light, tiptoeing out of habit, keys left on the kitchen table, jacket draped over his arm.

He’s been gone since Saturday and it’s pushing Wednesday morning, quarter til midnight. You’ve been alone since then, going between work and your apartment, wasting the time in-between and you’re doing your best not to feel bad about it, but still - **  
**

You look away when it remains closed.

The room is blanketed in an inky navy blue, everything saturated in varying shades of indigo. Before you, your blanket is a sea of gray waves, your legs hidden beneath. Cool white moonlight pools just inside your windowsill through the slits in the white window blinds, casting a shadow against the floor - not bright enough to really illuminate anything else. On the nightstand next to your bed, your landline blinks red with every three Mississippi, it, too, given a different hue by the emptiness of the night. 

Steve is quiet for a second. You can hear the sounds of his world in the background - nothing distinct, not the usual blowing of his desk fan rattling, the green ribbon tapped to its face waving around wildly, papers in front of him not held down by something heavy fluttering at their edges. There’s no other voices - Javier isn’t in the background teasing Steve for using government hours to talk to his wife. There isn’t the din of his other colleagues, speaking in English or Spanish. No other telephones ringing. No typewriters clacking. These noises are more eerie, less comfortable. Less personal and curtained by the hushed static of the telephone, filling the gaps between your words, spreading among his silence. 

“I know, baby. I hate it too,” Steve sighs, sounds both near and far away, pushing his fingers through his hair. His eyes fixate on some nondescript spot in the green linoleum flooring, leftovers of whatever this place used to be - details that build up to a bigger picture he hasn’t bothered researching - then they unfocus. “But it’s only for a little while longer - least ‘til I can find an excuse to get my ass outta here. Then I’m all yours, sweetheart. I promise.” 

“Yeah…yeah, I know, Steve. I’m not mad at you - just sucks, is all.” 

He hasn’t told you a lot about what he’s doing and you understand not to ask - just that he’d be away for a few days, not to get upset if he can’t call you every night because reception might not be that great, but to know that he’s thinking about you - has got your pretty smile memorized, and that he’ll be back as soon as this shit is over, leaving you with a kiss on your forehead that felt too much like he wasn’t wholly confident in the last thing he said. 

And it makes you think about how annoyed you sometimes get when he’s actually there to sleep in bed next to you because he tucks his feet under the comforter at night. But it isn’t that he’s tucking all of the blanket - it’s only ever one little part, the bit still on his side of the mattress, just the stretch of fabric extending past his legs before it dips and cascades to the floor and it would be fine except you’re always right next to him - plastered against his body for warmth, so when he does that the blanket is lifted and displaced at the edges where the tucked and untucked parts met and your feet were always left cold. 

You’d give anything to be stupidly irritated like that, pressing your feet to his calves or his back as revenge, instead of filled with worry and fear. 

Steve closes his eyes, leans his head back and scrubs his face. Sucks is an understatement. He feels like he’s living in days that dissolve backwards - slowly melting and tumbling in reverse, over and over in an endless cycle of repeated bureaucracy and deadened stakeouts. One step ahead. Two steps back. Still, he’s determined not to make the focus of this conversation something that’ll make you both feel empty after hanging up. 

He shifts into a different gear. 

“How was your night, baby?” 

“Boring…” You exhale, studying the eggshell colored plastic wrapped around your fingers. “I got some laundry done, cooked dinner.”

In your mind’s eye, you picture the kitchen, then the kitchen sink that’s still filled with pots and pans you couldn’t bring yourself to clean. A lonesome sort of photograph - dishes covered in grease and other food crumbs that didn’t quite make it to the trashcan bathed in orange street light, piled haphazardly on top of one another, the sort of wide shot you see in movies used to put to picture the deterioration of a characters life - and eventually one will slip - your frying pan, probably, gliding, inching slowly like some ancient iceberg from water or something equally as slippery or maybe even a little dish soap still on its surface or on the faces of the dishes beneath it, upsetting the cups that had been supporting it, sending a clattering noise down the hallway, making you jump. 

“Good. Borin’s good. What you make for dinner?” 

His voice returns you to the phone. 

“Says you. I’m losing my mind in this house. I swear I’ve gone through every book we own.” You unravel your knuckles from the telephone wire. “And nothing fancy, just what was left in our freezer. We have to go shopping soon. I was thinking about finally reading that cookbook my mom bought us a few Christmases ago and trying a couple of the recipes to keep myself occupied.” 

You think about the bookshelf in your living room, the color of sandalwood filled to the brim with novels; with old college textbooks, hard covers cracked at the edges and paperbacks torn, pages wrinkled with dog ears, and photo albums; some yellow pages you’d brought with you, too, for whatever reason when you moved - some shelves double stacked, some with books resting on top of other books - some very obviously gravitated towards more than others by their state of disarray.Then you picture that cookbook, tucked away at about eye-level with you, easy to lose among the sea of spines and pages, and you think about how your mother had only given it to you because she was afraid Steve might starve. It nearly makes you giggle. 

“Yeah, that’s a nice idea, sweetheart. You should do that,” He agrees, his hand beginning to ache from holding the clunky brick-like receiver to his ear. “Although that makes me a little nervous. Just don’t go burnin’ our kitchen down tryin’ to make yourself a recipe from nineteen sixty-five.” 

Your laughter floats from one end of the telephone to the piece in his hand and it hits him somewhere in the middle of his chest, sucks all the air out of his lungs and makes him feel so incredibly lonely - filled with a longing to be near you again. Still, he smiles, maybe out of habit - forced by his subconscious because he can’t stand to worry you by frowning, maybe not - can’t really help himself either way. Can never help himself when it comes to you. 

“I still don’t know why she thought that was something we’d like,” He can picture your grin in his head, sort of crooked and shy the way it always is when you’re talking to him. “I mean, wiener winks? What the hell even is that?” 

Steve chuckles, warm and as syrupy as molasses. It was your second Christmas together - you had just moved into your first real house with a mortgage and a backyard with neighbors that participated in shit like city council and organizing bake sales. It was a two bedroom, one bath, no basement because in Florida water sits underground or maybe it was something about frost lines - _whatever_ \- with patches of dead grass in the front yard, yellowed by the sun,and some God awful artificial football field looking green turf covering the front steps and porch that _crunched_ when you walked on it. But it had a cherry red front door that you adored - had gushed over to the real estate agent when you were looking for places and had ultimately been the deciding factor in choosing that particular house even though he knew there was no way in hell you’d be able to manage paying every bill on time with the salaries you were making, positive that by the end of the year he’d be happy if you still had lights to turn on. He just wanted to make you happy, make coming down here with him a little more bearable - give you something for all you’ve given him. 

Your mom came to visit, had retired down in Tampa with your dad a few years after you graduated college. They missed the snow but enjoyed the sunshine, drove the four hours it had taken to get to Miami, brought over presents still looking like tourists, and when you had opened yours you had to force a smile, staring down at the front cover of a book that looked as if teal paint had been splattered all over it and then covered up with various crockpots and plates, all resting on bright red gingham oven mitts. 

Steve had to leave the room. 

“Can’t be anythin’ worse than ‘tunnel of fudge.’” He throws back, leaning back in his chair, staring out the window, bringing his free hand to his hair and pushing his fingers through it. 

“Oh, so you’ve been reading this too? Maybe I should make you cook one of the recipes, then. ” 

“Very funny. You already know that ain’t a good idea. Where’d you think I got that chocolate cake recipe for your birthday, sweetheart?”

“The one you ended up burning?” 

“ _Yes_ , the one I burned. I was tryin’ to be nice.” He replies, long suffering and dramatic. 

You had been out of the house for whatever reason - sent away with Javier, told not to come back until Javi said that you could, and initially you were upset because you didn’t want to spend your birthday with your husband’s fucking partner instead of your _husband_ , but you had made a day of it anyway; spent the afternoon at a market, letting Javi point you in the direction of the best produce, only to come home that evening nearly tripping over a smoking trash can, your kitchen a disaster. 

“Our kitchen smelled like charred bundt cake for two days, Steve.” 

“Hey, I learned my lesson.” He defends himself. “That’s the last time I try bein’ romantic.” 

You roll your eyes, a rush of airy affection filling your chest, trying not to smile too hard and leave your cheeks hurting after you hand up. 

“You’re so dramatic.” 

You can almost hear the air displace with the energy and slyness of his grin before he says a word and it makes you brace yourself, chewing the inside of your bottom lip to keep from grinning too hard. 

“You’re so pretty.” 

Your face flushes and you gape in the darkness of your bedroom, fluttering excitement even after all the time you’ve been together momentarily constricting your throat. 

“I- _stop it_ , you can’t even see me.” You protest, sinking into your pillows. 

“You’re always pretty, baby. I don’t have to see you to know that.” 

“Quit sweet talking me.” 

“I’m not sweet talkin,’ baby. I’m just tellin’ the truth, but if it’s working I’m not gonna complain.” 

“Two. Days. _Two days_ it smelled like that.” You point out, unable to contain the laughter in your voice. 

“Yeah, and I did more than my share to make up for it, didn’t I?” 

“Maybe I was looking forward to that cake.” 

“You weren’t lookin’ forward to anythin’ other than my tongue when I had my face buried in that pretty little pussy of yours and we both know it. Don’t we, sweetheart?”

The world is quiet save for the blood suddenly rushing in your ears, pulse hammering in a staccato rhythm, and your breath hitches, audible enough that it makes a sort of blunted static noise against his ear through the receiver and he grins - wicked and knowing and altogether entirely too pleased with himself. 

“That’s not fair.” A near suffocating warmth creeps up your neck, then blooms across your cheeks. 

“Nah,” he drawls. “What ain’t fair is that I’m stuck sittin’ here in this goddamn furnace missin’ my wife while she’s layin’ all alone in our bed.” He can feel sweat trailing in droplets down his temples, the back of his neck, past the collar of his shirt, dampening the fabric. He thought summers in Tennessee were awful, with its high humidity and empty breezes that make it feel like the entire state has been blanketed in a thick quilt and placed into an oven, but Colombia’s giving him a taste of what it truly means to feel like he’s roasting alive. 

From where he sits inside some dark, empty office building, abandoned by the looks of it for some years now, he’s got a clear sight of the street below through cracked glass. Empty, punctuated by telephone polls and streetlamps, the sidewalk raised in some places, flat and cracked in others. Down the street is a pool hall filled with sicarios and women coated in a thin layer of grey cigarette smoke, all of them having a good time - laughing, getting drunk, spilling beer on themselves and the floor. So Steve is here, sitting in a fold-able fucking metal chair, the kind that littered the basement of his church every other Sunday night, just as uncomfortable in his thirties as they were when he was twelve and stuck listening to his group leader explain what it meant to commit a mortal sin, waiting for one of their sorry asses to make its way in his direction. 

Steve eyes his pack of his cigarettes situated on the wood top desk, its rickety steel legs looking like they’ll collapse at any minute. A serious venial sin, but he won’t be sent to hell for those. Nah, he’ll be sent to hell for something different, he reckons. 

Like leaving you all alone, maybe. 

He’s long since taken off his jacket, the collar of his sage button down collecting the sweat that rolls down his neck from his temples, his back already drenched. There’s no electricity running through the building, had flipped a few light switches when he first arrived earlier to see if the ceiling fans worked - supposes that someone at some point had finally gotten around to turning it off, saving the city money, but leaving him now feeling like he’s under a fucking hot lamp. Bogotá winters are fierce, and the insulation stuffed into the walls to keep the heat trapped inside during the cold months aren’t helping either. 

He returns his attention to the phone at the sound of your voice. 

“How do you know I’m in bed?” You retort in an effort to regain an iota of your composure, a stupid little retort you know he’s going to refute immediately, quickly shooing away the images his reminder has conjured in your head, arousal setting your lower belly into a flutter of butterflies. 

“Because I know you, baby. Same way I know you’ve got all our pillows ‘cept for one on the floor right now because you can’t stand to sleep feeling like you’re bein’ crowded, and that you’ve got the a.c. up as far as it can go, actin’ like you’re comfortable even though I know you’re shiverin’ underneath the blankets because you’re too lazy to get up and turn it off.” 

You eye the traitorous items, shadowy lumps of dark blue on your carpet, catching a little bit of the moonlight filtering in through the curtain, putting you somewhere between liking how well he knows you and wishing he were wrong just so you could tell him so. 

Really, though, he envies your shivering, wishes he were somewhere cold and calm and not apprehensive as hell, sweating buckets, watching the same stretch of street until it blurs into some nondescript shape of tarmac and bleeding yellow lights. 

He envies the man working at their desks, wishing he were back at the embassy, wasting brain cells trying to focus on paperwork, pen making the fold of skin and muscle between his thumb and pointer finger ache so badly that he needs to clench his hand into a fist a few times to alleviate it. 

But most of all he envies the people getting to see their wives tonight. 

You can sense Steve’s grin through the phone. 

“How’d I do?” He volleys, teasing and altogether too smug for your liking.

You roll your bottom lip between your teeth. 

“You forgot one thing.” 

“Yeah?” He asks. “What’s that, honey?” 

“You were right about the blankets…and the pillows…and the air conditioner, but you must not know me that well, baby, because it’s been three days since I’ve seen you…so I’m underneath the blankets just like you said, shivering just like you said, but I’m also missing my husband, wishing he were here right now to replace my fingers.” 

Steve groans, looks around even though he knows he’s alone - like someone might have been able to hear you, like someone might be able to see his reaction to it. It’s second nature to feel like he’s being watched, but this is a different kind of paranoia - feeling like he’s pinned beneath a microscope, doing something he shouldn’t be, and _Jesus_ \- he really is doing something he shouldn’t be, but instead of stopping all he wants to do is keep going. 

“ _Fuckin’ Christ_.” He hisses, curling forward a little in his seat, closing his eyes. Steve can feel the phone beginning to leave indentations in the pink flesh of his fingers where they curl around it to keep it steady, right in the spaces between his knuckles, his grip so tight that for half a second he thinks that maybe he heard the plastic crunch. He doesn’t dare drop it, though, doesn’t dare risk ending this call prematurely. 

“How’d I do?” You tease, throwing his words back at him, then - “Where are you?” Your sweet voice continues, airy and filled to the fucking brim with mirth. 

He sits straight again, blinks a few times as if seeing clearly would help him process your words, struggling to formulate thoughts that could be lined up and put neatly into sentences - so suddenly caught off guard he’s having trouble focusing on anything, let alone answering your questions. 

“I- _Jesus_ , honey, _what?_ ” 

“Are you alone?” You explain, bringing your thumb to your mouth, chewing your hangnail, trying not to grin too hard - pleased with yourself. 

“Yeah,” he replies embarrassingly fast. “Yeah, baby. I’m alone.” Steve clears his throat, shifts in his seat and rubs his palm down the front of his pants - suddenly unbearably warm. Been alone way too long - three fucking days, longest he’s gone without seeing you in a long time, feels like a goddamn eternity. 

“Wish you were with me.” 

“Sweetheart, what are you doin’?” He closes his eyes, scratches his brow bone with his thumbnail, trying to lower his heart rate to something that doesn’t quite feel like cardiac arrest. 

You haven’t done this since he was away at training - caught between the tanned or white walls of a classroom, listening to some man he had no idea existed until two weeks ago talk about the psychology behind drug dealers - or outside, when the trees were bare and the ground was frosted over into a sort of grey green, dirt crunching beneath his legs as he runs, awake so early that not even the sun remembered to shine, stuck behind an overcast of cigarette smoke clouds. 

He looked forward to his evenings, after the mess hall, nearly shoveled the food into his mouth and swallowed without chewing just to ensure that he could get to the phones before someone else did. And he’d walk up to them where they hung on the wall, black and steel with a long coil of telephone cord that allowed him just enough distance from the device that anyone listening couldn’t hear much, put in his quarters and pressed the worn, little buttons, dialing your number. 

You were shyer back then. 

“Just talking to you. Laying in our big, empty bed. Touching myself.” 

_Christ alive._

“See,” Steve shifts in his seat, clears his throat, “you say that like you haven’t just pushed me within an inch of my goddamn life, honey.” His voice is gravelly, practically a growl, impossibly low and honey-sweet even though he was shooting for something more neutral, something more assertive that didn’t betray his own desire so fucking obviously. 

Hungry. He sounds hungry. 

“I was only answering your question, Steve. S’too bad you aren’t here to see so for yourself.” The air around you suddenly feels the same way skin does dancing against skin underwater - dragging, caught on every curve and every edge - felt with more intensity, dense and substantial. You’re beginning to resent his job more than a night spent alone warrants - beginning to hate that he’s got to be so far away from you, putting his life in danger, making him feel guilty all the while because he knows it worries you. 

“It’s a fuckin’ tragedy baby,” He agrees and you know that he means it by the remorse in his voice. “Describe it to me. Tell me exactly what you’re doin.’ I wanna know.”

He thinks about you, laying with your hair tangled and haloed around your head against the pillows, your nightshirt pooled around your waist now - looking soft and serene and perfect and it makes him groan, makes it feel like there’s a rock on his diaphragm. 

You’re quiet on the other end, trying not to be shy - failing because he makes you feel like he’s watching you even from so far away, stuck under his thumb in all the ways that matter - all the ways that set your heart on fire, make you almost a little embarrassed, sheepish and like you’re way out of your depth because even after all these years, he makes you feel so intensely _seen._

He must sense your hesitation, encouragement like a clay pot filled to the brim with cool water, flowing from his lips just as easily, just as enticing. 

“Now, don’t be shy, honey. I don’t like guessin’ and you know I’ve got a shit imagination.” 

Liar. That’s not the truth at all but you know he’ll say about anything to get you to do as he’s asking. Anything to hear those moans. Anything to hear your voice, having gone without it for almost over seventy-eight hours. 

You ignore the windburn like blush coating your cheeks, how it climbs from your chest, up your neck. 

“I’ve got my fingers on my stomach, above my pussy…spread out just enough that when I dip them down, they just miss my clit…teasing myself the way you do.” This feels entirely too embarrassing, too lewd, having to bring to life your actions with words - as if you’re doing something wrong, but it’s thrilling, too, knowing what you’re doing to him from so far away, nearly giddy with the power you hold over him. 

“What else?” His voice strains. Vocal cords bunched together. Trying to fight down the warm, liquid burn in his belly and the corresponding swell and throb of his cock, dull and low and near constant now, begging for his attention. 

You imagine that it’s his hands on you instead, his calloused palms - scraping shallowly over the slopes of your body, _his_ thumb smoothing over the dips in your skin, that it’s really _him_ who is bringing these throaty murmurs in the back of your throat to life - dragging them as easily from you as he would if he were there in person. Your free hand bunches in the fabric of your sleep shirt. 

“I’m wet - want you so bad that it hurts.” 

Steve tilts his head back, swallows, studies the ceiling like it’ll give him the strength to sit through this without vibrating with the energy he’s restraining to keep himself from flying off his fucking seat and fishing his car keys out of his pocket. 

“Rub your clit. Go ahead, baby. You know I can’t tease you for long, not with those pretty little moans of yours.” 

“Oh God, Steve.” 

“You’re alright, sweetheart.” He soothes. “Nice and slow circles.” 

Fuck it, he thinks. If someone’s got this line tapped, at least they’re getting a show. 

“You doin’ what I say, honey?” 

“Y-Yeah, I’m-yeah, I am.” 

“Good girl. That’s good. How’s it makin’ you feel?”

“It’s making me feel…” You’re having trouble concentrating, words and thoughts forming like loose bubbles in your head, floating around and impossible to grasp. “It’s-It’d be better if it were you.” 

“I’d give anythin’ to be touchin’ you right now.” Steve answers, adjusting the phone, no longer holding it now with his dominant hand. 

“Tell me what you’re doing, Steve. Please.” 

_Jesus God_ , he’d be lucky if he could tell you his own name right now. 

“I’m unbuttonin’ my pants…pullin’ down my fly.” The noise of his zipper sounds far too loud and grating but he keeps going anyway, the teeth falling away, the pressure of the fabric loosened. His knuckles skim the hard line of cock through his slacks and Steve jolts a little, closes his eyes and swallows hard as he adjusts the headset again, his palm sweating against the plastic. “Jesus, sweetheart, you have no idea what you’re doin’ to me.” He grits, pulling himself out of his boxers. 

“Are you hard?” 

Steve nearly laughs at the absurdity of your question, as if he could be anything else. 

“Yeah, baby. I’m- _shit_ , you have no idea.” 

The head of his cock is red and aching and already dripping pre-cum, and the first skim of his thumb along it is enough to make him hiss through his teeth, head filled with thoughts of you - your hands fisted in your dark bed-sheets, wrinkled from where you’ve already been grabbing at it, your head thrown back and the soft, smooth column of your throat covered in varying shades of red marks, ghosts of his kisses, ghosts of his affection and need. 

Of you between his knees, looking up at him from under your lashes. 

“Rub a little harder, honey. I want to hear you.” 

“I miss you so much, Steve.” You gasp, and he can picture your fingers - slick, quick little things working yourself just like he’s asked. Your lament sparks a fierce, piercing sort of ownership deep inside his abdomen - white hot and bright as a fucking star, longing for nothing more than to be near you again - to be able to hold you, see you like this in person instead of relying on the abilities of his memory. 

“Miss you too.” Misses you like he’d miss the ability to breathe as the last goddamn tree was being cut down. Misses you so much his chest aches with the weight of it. Misses you to the point that he’s here, alone is some wreckage of an office space, working his cock in his hand like he’s in college again, wanting more than anything for you to be the one touching him instead. 

“Miss you more than anything, sweetheart.” He chokes, his muscles tightening, his palm hesitating over the length of his cock, part of his brain still fighting with the stupid fucking morality of this situation - with the consequences that could become very real - with a lot of things, actually, but those parts are fogged over and filling with more mist the longer he hears you against his ear, so it doesn’t really matter what he _thinks_ because his thoughts are barely a blip on his radar; just undercurrents, nothing at all compared to the physical need surmounting in his chest and blooming up his chest like lighter fluid poured on an already roaring house-fire. 

“Can’t wait til you get home…” You whine, the plaintive, gentle careen in your voice enough to coax him into full-blown arousal, cock twitching in his fist, a shocked and sort of deep and aborted groan crawling its way up his throat with the first real pump of his hand. “Can’t wait to touch you. I’m so - _fuck_ \- I’m so sick of your job. Hate that you’re not here.” 

Steve grits his teeth, presses his thumb down against the vein running up the underside of his cock, clarity piercing through the heavy mist in his mind long enough for him to realize he agrees. 

“I hate it more than you fuckin’ know, baby. Wanna be buried in that pussy of yours so goddamn bad.” 

He’d quit tomorrow if you asked - do and be anything to keep you happy - knows that it’s unrealistic and that it won’t ever come to that, that you’ve got bills to pay and that really, he might not actually because that’s stupid, he didn’t come all the way down here to sit on the sidelines and watch other men do his job and that if it did - if things between you ever got that corrosive and damaged - giving up his job wouldn’t do a damn thing, but the sentiment is still that same. He’d give you a hundred red doored houses just to see you smile. 

“ _Steve._ ” You mewl, passive and pleading, head turned to the side, burying your face into your pillow, eyes closed, the ghost of him you’ve conjured in your head a faux presence between your legs. 

“I’m right here, honey. You sound so fuckin’ pretty for me - such a good girl. Bet you look beautiful.” 

The praise makes your blood sing, your teeth dragging over your bottom lip, the phone now only supported by the mass of pillows and blankets next to your head, the hand that had been holding it skimming down the valley between your breasts - trying to mimic the motions of your husband, trying to do what you know he would - the softness and delicateness of them nothing at all compared to the rough and callousness of his own, before pinching your right nipple, then the left. 

You say his name again because that’s all you’re capable of - his responding moan spurring you further, rubbing your clit in time with the sound of his palm against his cock. 

“Fuck,” Steve murmurs, followed by your name, breathy and low, muted smacks accompanined by deep and quiet panting. “Talk to me, honey. Wanna know how you’re feelin.’” 

“Feeling…feels so good, Steve.” You want nothing more than to be able to touch him - for him to touch you. You want his hands on your body and his mouth and his voice against the shell of your ear. You want the nearness of loving him brings. You want him to be so close that your heart bursts with the sudden and overwhelming affection it holds for him. You want all these things and more, but this is the first time you’ve felt good since he left, so you aren’t going to complain. You’re going to take what you can get and hold on to it. 

You can feel the first shocks of your orgasm building in the pit of your stomach, already trembling, trying to keep yourself from coming so fast, not wanting this to end even as you squirm, your hips rocking into your hand - every movement deliberate, pleasure making your skin prickle and the insides of your thighs feel like they’re being licked with electricity. 

“What are you thinking about?” You ask, the timbre in your voice changing, becoming more high pitched and strung out and desperate. 

“The last time I fucked you.” He grits and it makes you keen, knowing exactly what he looks like right now - blonde hair against his forehead, lips red and raw and bitten-through, his cheeks a lighter hue, thoroughly fucked and beautiful and needy, his cock in his hand. “You remember that, baby?” 

His answer’s effect is instantaneous. You mewl, lift your waist, then drop them down against your hand, digging your free hand into the sheets with enough force that it feels like the fiber might rip, your middle and ring fingers making small circles against your bundle of nerves, your cunt fluttering around nothing. 

“I remember.” You pant, flushing with the memories of it - nothing extraordinary, nothing different, but he had still managed to make you feel like you had suddenly been enveloped by the sun, pushed up against your bedroom door, a neglected basket of laundry cooling from the drier still perched on your bed waiting to be folded. 

“‘M so close, Steve.” 

Your warning makes his veins feel deficient, paper-thin and liable to burst - can’t possibly hold back what’s inside, not anymore, not when you’re so far away and he’s here and the only thing connecting you are some cell signals bouncing off of radio towers miles away. 

“ _Christ_ \- me too.” He groans, working his cock harder and faster and its fucking filthy what he’s doing but he’s so far past the point of caring. 

Choking on your own breath, you try to regain your focus but it’s impossible now, blanketed in an all-encompassing euphoria that only grows heavier with each noise coming from his end of the receiver, 

“You gonna come for me, baby?” 

Your brow furrows and your mouth falls open and it feels like the world is a little off kilter, oxygen trapped in your lungs, feeling acidic and scorched and like you’re some strangled moon caught in the orbit of his roasting and burning sun. 

“Y-yeah - yeah, _fuck_ \- _**Steve.**_ ” 

Your orgasm is shredding - a melody of noises and strangled sounds tumbling past your lips, wanton and reckless and _relieved._

Steve groans. He gasps and gapes into the darkness as his resolve splinters, his moans choked off and you realize with no small amount of satisfaction through your hazy consciousness that he’s no longer in control of himself. 

“Oh, God.” He groans, something desperate curtailed by your name, and he trembles - rocks his hips forward and spills into his hand, onto his jeans and stomach. 

It’s nothing but your shared, ragged breathing for a while as you both recover - you staring at the blackness of your ceiling, Steve out into the street. Then, finally: 

“You alright?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” 

Quiet again. Not quite as relaxed as before. Steve leans all the way back in his chair, head tilted back as he pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t feel good - hurts even more with the throb of missing you now that arousal isn’t clouding his head like smoke. 

“It’s late-”

“I should go to bed-”

You speak over one another, then stop each other short, waiting for the other to continue. 

“Go ahead-” He starts again. 

“What were you saying-” 

Steve exhales, can hear the exhaustion in your voice, the yawn you’re trying to stifle, the impression of it molding against his heart in a way that aches. 

“You go, sweetheart.” 

“I was just saying I should go to bed.” 

“Yeah,” Steve glances at his wristwatch, sees its nearly half past the hour, feels guilty for keeping you up this long. “Get some sleep, baby.” 

“Goodnight, Steve.” 

“Goodnight, sweetheart. I’ll see you…” He trails off, carding his fingers through his hair, not entirely sure when that actually might be, comprehends this a little too late. “I’ll see you when I get home.” 

“Love you.” 

“Love you more. Night.” 

And with that, he brings the phone away from his face - clicks the end call button and stares down at the device, then sets it aside and cleans himself up, his heart still thumping like a trapped bird against his rib cage. 

The night resettles itself like disturbed water, becomes what it once was - dragging and solid and slow. He blinks, then rubs his burning eyes, hadn’t realized how fucking tired he was until just now, and glances at his walky-talky. 

Without meaning to, he drifts off, his head lulling, subconscious dancing with images of you until the flow of it is interrupted, the device comes to life with a sputtering of static. 

How long had he been asleep? 

_“Target moving in your direction, Murphy. Stay alert.”_


	4. fruits of the poisonous tree | Steve Murphy x Stripper!Reader

Steve leaves the embassy early Friday night and no one suspects a thing. He tucks his gun into his pants, against his lower back, grabs a few files for good measure, then his car keys. No one pays that much attention in the first place, but they’ve made it a habit of avoiding him now, so he can get away with it; slips under the radar a little easier now because his coworkers have just as much trouble handling awkward situations as he does and personal life issues like say - your wife leaving you and filing for divorce - are about as awkward as any situation can get, especially in an office full of hardasses and bureaucrats. 

The strip club is some tan brick building tucked away in the corner of two streets that intersect near a highway in Bogotá. Low to the ground, windowless, dirty looking with a ratty veranda sticking out from the front door. Hidden on purpose, he figures. It’s always places like these that get raided first. All low neon lights and gravel. Or perhaps he just hadn’t noticed it before. Hadn’t had any reason to. Not that he really had the time to notice, either, not the inclination. Javier pointed it out, told him where it was in a voice that was closer to concern than amusement. Worried, maybe. Leaning against his desk, hushed but not embarrassed, not so subtly telling him that he’s got to snap himself out of it. Wanting to help his friend when really he should have been minding his fucking business.

He’s here anyway, though. 

Steve sits in his car, stares at the front door where the bouncer stands, wonders if the bouncer knows he sees more than one DEA agent a night without realizing it. 

If he knows he’s about to see the head of _janitorial services._

What a stupid fucking title. 

Steve chuckles to himself, shakes his head. 

Made up that lie for no reason now, it seems. 

His window is down, his left hand hanging out, ringless, lit cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger, the fingers of his right hand tapping against the steering wheel in a mindless rhythm as he works through the consequences of going inside. 

He wouldn’t lose his job. Isn’t doing anything illegal. Not like Javier. Hasn’t gone that far yet, but there’s still plenty of time for that. 

Lots of it now, actually, with an empty apartment. 

She had taken almost nothing, though, but that’s not really what matters. That isn’t what’s making his house darker, more hollow. She packed her clothes, her shoes, some of her stuff - left everything else. The furniture (couldn’t exactly bring it with her on the plane, wasn’t about to pay to have it shipped the some fifteen hundred miles it would take to get it to her sister’s house in Miami) was left for him to keep, wasn’t even a discussion between their lawyers. Neither were the pans, the silverware, the dishes, the record player. She didn’t want anything from him, not even money. And he isn’t sure if he’s relieved with how well it had gone, how smooth, or if he should hate it and hate her by extension because that means she had given up. She wanted nothing more to do with him, nothing else connecting their lives. 

Not even the stuff he would have gladly let her take, things that felt like they belonged more to her than they ever did to him. 

Connie had decorated. She chose the paint. Hung up the mirrors and the curtains. She did everything.

She did everything and he did nothing - can’t even say he saved her a lifetime of hell because he didn’t - and now he’s here, divorced, sitting in an idling car with his headlights off, his suit wrinkled and his eyes tired, deciding very suddenly to pull his keys out of the ignition. 

The car door complains when he opens it, creaks again when it shuts behind him, but he doesn’t notice it and wouldn’t have cared as he throws his cigarette onto the ground and puts it out with the toe of his dress shoe. It’s cold out tonight, cold enough that his suit jacket isn’t doing a whole lot to keep him warm, so when he exhales he can see his breath, watching as it swirls around his face. He tries not to think about how she would have reminded him to take a jacket. 

Steve looks up from the pavement, spots for the first time in the fifteen minutes he had been sitting in his car the group of women standing on the far off side of the club, huddled together talking. 

He stands next to the jeep, looks at them, his keys curled into his palm. 

Taking their break it looks like, keeping each other company, talking about the men they’ve seen stride or stumble their way to a seat around the stage. 

He wonders, very briefly, what he’ll look like to them. If he’ll blend in or stand out. No different, probably, not with how obviously he screams mid life crisis; eyes hooded from exhaustion, two or three days past a shave. Equally as pitiful and transparent as all the others. 

Until one of them looks in his direction and stops talking. Even from as far away as he is he can tell that she’s pretty, that she’s young, and that she probably shouldn’t be looking at him the way she is. His heart hiccups, and it makes him want to look away because really he’s too fucking old and tired for this, but he’s a man with eyes and he’s already here so maybe - if he stretches the bounds of morality - he can make this okay. 

But then her eyebrows are furrowing and she’s looking away, speaking quickly to her coworkers before going back inside. 

Steve watches. 

He follows. 

The beat is low, thumping, bass somewhere between upsetting the rhythm of his heartbeat and pressing down on his lungs. 

The hallway leading away from the entrance is dark. Steve adjusts his tie knot, loosens it, undoes the first button of his dress shirt as he walks down the long path to the lobby, bathed in dark red light. It’s loud, the club filled with the sounds of male voices and laughter, of clinking glasses and the cut of light, feminine whispering, and he can hear all of it before he steps fully inside; feels filthy already, but makes no move to leave. 

He finds the bar first, approaches it. 

To his left are two stages, both extending far into the room, both surrounded by deep set armchairs with people sitting in them, their heads turned upwards towards the dancers, some throwing bills, others just watching. It’s as dark as it was in the hall, but in a different way; lights in shades of purple and blue and pink bouncing off wine colored walls, the poles and platforms illuminated in an almost bioluminescent white. It’s about what he had imagined, is definitely the kind of place Javier’d frequent. Strangely elegant. 

The counter is made of glass and as he sits down, he makes a purposeful attempt not to catch his reflection in it. Keeps his head low and away from the strippers that aren’t on the stages as well, those that are entertaining patrons splayed across plush lounge seats, American currency tucked into the strings of their underwear so small that if someone really wanted to, if he ever found himself close enough - was tempted enough to do it - could snap the garment from their hips with a quick tug and a steady hand. 

Steve finds himself anyway when he looks up at the bartender, past him then to the mirror behind the man’s back, his image taunting, ridiculing, something he’d probably have the urge to make fun of if it weren’t himself he was looking at, unbelievably sad and pathetic. 

He rubs his hand across his face. 

Jesus, what the fuck is he doing here? 

Then braces himself on his elbows, places his head in his hands, and runs his fingers through his hair, looking up again to briskly mumble his order when the bartender taps the counter to get his attention. 

Fifteen minutes pass in relative peace. If someone new is dancing, he doesn’t notice, has kept his head low and thoughts elsewhere, everything else continuing behind and around him just as it would if he weren’t there. By now his glass is about empty. He wasn’t paying much attention to how the alcohol drained with each of his sips until he went to order another and found that his hand felt like it had been encased in cement, slow moving and a little blurry and not nearly as controllable as he’d like it to be. 

Still, he considers the benefits of ordering another regardless. He’s good at holding his alcohol, great at it, actually, which ended up being a problem, so he’s far from drunk enough - will need more to shake the self hatred from his shoulders. Is more or less aware of his surroundings, but he’s getting older and his cheeks are already rosy, flushed and hot. Conscious now with the way his movements have shaken him out of his head of the scantily dressed women walking around him regardless of his efforts. Another might push him off that plateau, help him loosen up. He orders a shot of tequila this time and another fingerful of whisket, which is, fuck - well it’s a bad idea - because it burns like hell going down and sets a low fire in his belly and he coughs a little bit, catches the attention of the bartender who looks at him like he’s seen weaker men handle stronger - but it gets the job done - his shoulders sag, his bones feel like jelly. However, when he goes to get up, to find the bathroom and maybe stay there until he’s sober enough to drive home or maybe just to get closer to the door perhaps, the tequila still sharp on his tongue, he’s stopped. 

“What’s your name?” Low and lilting, the sound of it makes him pause. 

Steve turns his head in the direction of the woman’s voice, your voice, the same girl who had been outside and staring right back at him now less than three feet away, her hand hovering somewhere between wanting to touch him and thinking the better of it, and immediately his mind fixates with terrifying precision on what it would feel like to kiss you. 

What it would feel like to touch you. 

To maybe fuck you too. 

And it makes him feel gross because he’s got so much more self control than that. _He knows better._

But recently he’s been impulsive. Stupid and reckless and every other adjective that could describe poor decision making because he’s thirty-five years old and divorced with no children and has nothing else to lose and nearly absolutely nothing to gain aside from maybe, one day, being able to say he was the one who stopped Pablo Escobar. 

Except now that doesn’t seem as appealing as it once was. 

So, really, what else is there for him to do? 

Closer, he can see what you’re wearing, can make a more accurate guess at your age. He was right in assuming you were young, maybe in your early twenties, wearing what could be a swimsuit with black fishnet hold-ups and a pair of stilettos. 

He looks at you, battles with answering, then exhales and grabs his drink. 

“Steve.” 

“Steve…” You repeat his name and he’s uncomfortable with how nice you make it sound. “I saw you in the parking lot. Looked like you weren’t going to come inside.” 

“Still decidin’ if it was a good idea that I did.” He mutters, taking a sip of the amber liquid until most of it is gone, his adam’s apple bobbing, far too sinful looking for you to like coming from a potential customer. 

Makes it harder to let them leave. 

Makes it harder to follow the rules. 

“Ouch.” You wince, fighting a smile. “I can go somewhere else if you’d like. Just thought you looked lonely, is all.” 

_And like you might have some money, business suit._

Steve leans back, feels like an idiot and looks appropriately remorseful, a little defensive even though he doesn’t know you any different than anyone else here, in that he doesn’t know anyone here at all. 

“I didn’t mean it like that-” 

“I know.” You shrug, mercifully cutting him off, looking up into his face. “You spend the better part of your nights here, you start looking for ways of entertaining yourself. I was just teasing.” 

“Right.” Steve drawls, nodding slowly, and you can take the hint. 

A beat of silence passes between your bodies. Steve looks anywhere but directly at you. 

“I’ll leave you alone for now, but you come find me, okay? I know what it’s like.” 

Your voice holds a gentleness and sincerity that frightens him, makes him look at you as you walk off - beautiful and graceful and everything he should stay far, far away from. 

He can’t even begin to imagine what you mean, or rather he knows what you’re saying, but can’t bring himself to think that he’s that see through, unless he looks a lot more like a cry for help than he imagines he does. 

Which is probably the case. Except you weren’t put off by it, by him, which is surprising because he’s old enough to feasibly be your dad, old enough to make you wonder why he’s at a strip club instead of at home in bed with his wife or at the bar or just like - somewhere that isn’t here. 

It’s bad enough that this is how he’s spending his evening, but it’s only being made exponentially worse by the way he already wants something from you - a need - sinking and swaying in his gut like a loose anchor he can’t seem to get control of, like the feeling before something awful happens. 

Something that’ll be entirely his fault. 

You disappear through a curtain at the far end of the room. 

He gets up, fishes his wallet out of his pocket and places a couple of bills onto the bartop to pay for his drinks. He isn’t sure what it is that makes him move, but it suspiciously feels like desire, something he’s only felt for his wife for so long that initially he’s repulsed by it. He supposes he should have expected for it to be like this, for the residues of their relationship deeply embedded in the cracks of their broken marriage to be harder to get rid of, yet he hates it anyway, and finds himself more spiteful than he was before. 

Towards Connie. Towards his job. Towards himself. 

The curtain brushes past his shoulders just as the music changes - shifts to something with heavy drums, slowed and repetitive, melodic and sharp - something that makes his stomach lurch. Customers aren’t allowed back here without permission, something about the dancers’ safety, but he almost doesn’t give a goddamn if he’s thrown out by security. Part of him wants a fight. 

The other part, the part that’s becoming larger and more consuming, though, wants to see you. 

Time feels sticky with its elasticity, like he exists in the moments leading up to an accident, right before impact when things are suspended and tense, growing more tuat and strung out as he turns a corner and finds you standing in the center of a small room. 

He’d be annoyed by your giggling if he couldn’t tell that you wanted him just as bad. 

“You can come in and sit down, you know.”

Steve takes a step forward, the curtain falls behind him and blocks out the rest of the hallway, makes him feel like he’s been dunked in a glass of cold water after being left on concrete, not that there was much going on in it anyway, but its privacy enough, and not as dangerous as a locked door can be. Enough to have his skin singing at the idea of being alone with you. 

Enough to make him clench his jaw. 

He sits down onto the velvet couch. 

“What’s your name?” 

“My real one or the one I’m supposed to tell you?” You counter as you step closer, diminishing the three or so feet that had separated your bodies, easing onto his thighs. 

“You know…” He watches you take a hold of his tie, letting it fall through your palm before catching the end of it. “Usually I make sure that a customer pays first, just so that they aren’t getting anything from me for free…but I like you, Steve.” He doesn’t have enough time to school his expression when you make eye-contact with him, his lungs constricting. “And I have a feeling I probably shouldn’t.” 

“Why’s that?” He murmurs, leaning up - up until your face is inches from his own - up until your breathing is mingled, shared and hot against both your faces, up until if he wanted to, he could tilt his head forward and kiss you. 

“Because most of the men I see don’t spend so much time in the parking lot.” Steve nearly says something, but you keep going, honey sweet and teasing. “Because they don’t go immediately to the bar, either. And they certainly don’t deny my company…” 

“Molly’s guess was CIA…there’s a lot of you guys down here, plenty of them out there right now, but I said no…no, he isn’t arrogant enough for that.” You lift your chin, just barely catch his bottom lip with yours and it’s fucking electric the way he has to physically fight the urge to touch you. 

“My guess was DEA…and a pretty damaged one, too.” 

You must read the alarm on his face, the confusion and slight anger because you go on to explain yourself, running your hands up the planes of his chest, then down his shoulders. “Like I said, Agent. I know what it’s like. _And you know better._ ” 

Steve looks away, huffs a laugh and shakes his head, running his tongue along his upper row of teeth. Right on the nose. Which is unbelievable and suspicious, raises a few alarm bells in the areas of his brain that aren’t clouded and fogged over by the alcohol and his stupid fucking loneliness driving his need to be touched, but he ignores them easily in favor of watching as you crawl out of his lap and take a few steps backward. 

“You knew all that just by lookin’ at me?” 

“Gotta be good at figuring people out in this line of work.” 

Mine too, he thinks, wondering how the hell he got here, being profiled by a dancer in a strip club he’s never been to, alone in a room with you he has no business being in. 

“But it ain’t your job to.” He points out, rolling his lips, looking you up and down in a way that has you squirming just a little bit. It’s a strange feeling, exposing yourself like this, but with a stranger there’s this complete detachment, the lack of fear of judgement because they had sought you out that makes it easy to throw caution to the wind. Now, however…now he’s not making that quite so easy for you. You had to make the offer, you were the one who spoke to him first, and you’re almost positive that if you hadn’t, he would still be at the bar, quietly getting plastered until he was too drunk to remember why he had come. 

“No,” you volley back, the song you’re supposed to be dancing to restarting, startling in that you’ve been so engrossed by him for so long that you’ve totally delayed the point of wanting him to follow. “But I doubt getting to know the locals like this is part of your job, either.” 

“No.” He agrees. “I guess it isn’t.” 

That being said, if there’s one thing he’s learned down here, it’s that decision making…determining what’s good or bad….what should or shouldn’t be done…good and evil…it’s all relative. 

And by those means, there are far worse ways he could be spending his Friday evening. 

Far worse things he could be doing than watching you dance. 

Steve leans back, rubs his hands down the front of his pants before resting both of them on the spine of the couch. 

You feel him looking at you with much more intensity now, a sudden buzz of ricocheting energy. He’s thinking, wondering, looking at you with much more precision than he had before or at least as much as he can with a head full of liquor, but that’s starting to go away too - his sobriety shifting with his desire for you. 

You begin your routine, but all you can think of is the low buzzing tremor of want thrumming through your abdomen, caught in an awareness of him so overwhelming that it’s like he’s sticking a lit match to the ends of every nerve in your body, heat roiling over you in waves. 

Reaching for the pole in the center of the room, you think you hear Steve quietly groan and your body answers with a coiling buzz of anticipation that pierces the pit of your stomach so distracting you almost forget to keep your grip as you swing yourself up and around, fumbling slightly as you descend - but if he notices, it doesn’t seem to matter because when you glance in his direction he’s shifting in his seat and adjusting his pants, the palm of his hand dragging against the line of his cock. 

You do your best to keep going, acutely aware that part of your dance requires getting closer to him again - requires touching him just a little, asking him how he’s feeling, if he likes what he sees. Talk to me, you’d say. 

And normally you’d be okay with doing that, like getting the feedback because it feeds your ego, makes the job more fun, except now you aren’t sure you’d be able to tell him to stop if he decided to touch you back. 

It doesn’t help your situation at all that he smells good, even with the whiskey he had been drinking still on his breath, like sea salt and lime and aftershave. So intoxicating that when you get near enough to him to catch it, you nearly want to give up the pretenses of this dance. 

But you don’t, you keep going, murmuring at him to keep his knees apart as you turn, pressing yourself against him and occupying the space between his legs, the back of your head against his shoulder. You look over at him, make sure to keep as much eye contact with him as you can as you arch your back and bring your hands up to your breasts, squeezing, writhing, brushing your thumbs over your nipples until they harden against the thin fabric of your bra. 

“Christ…” Steve exhales, allows it to be loud enough for you to hear.

His praise makes you fumble, not enough to fall, not really, but he catches you anyway, huffs a sort of laugh, and whispers something that sounds like careful, in a voice as dripping as molasses, a warning that sounds far too entertained for him to really mean it because the last thing he needs is caution. Caution had been sacrificed a long time ago. Had - or rather the lack of it had - led to the downfall of his marriage. No use in trying to bring it back now. 

The air veers - alters and shifts and changes - like all its ions and electrical charges had been disrupted the same way it does when it’s about to rain. When the leaves turn over and the wind begins to pick up. 

“Somethin’ distracting you, sweetheart?” 

Whatever your answer was going to be doesn’t matter because he’s pushing right up against you, his grip on your waist firm and unforgiving, keeping you cemented in his lap like he thinks you’ve got somewhere else to be when really now that you know the warmth of it you never want to be anywhere else. So you don’t flinch, or turn around, keening only when he nosejesus, its at your hair, speaking against your earlobe, rough and harsh and maybe - probably - in a way that should be frightening but it isn’t. 

“I saw the way you were lookin’ at me…” He says, mouth twitching in a smile that’s not happy or nice or even remotely good at all. “Out in the parking lot. Then you scurried inside, tryin’ to act like you knew what you were doin’ all along…” He continues, his left hand climbing from your waist up your body, stopping just short of your throat. “And you know what, it was kinda sweet how you were trying to play it off like you hadn’t been caught.” 

You wonder, very seriously then, what it would be like - what it would feel like - to kiss him. 

“Yeah?” You ask, grinding back against his cock as much as his grip will allow. 

His response is immediate, in a matter of fucking seconds, his fingers - t _he ones that were around your neck, so thick and long and masculine and so fucking filthy_ , especially with that fucking watch - climb up the back of your skull and make a fist, his grip bordering just on the cusp of too tight, almost searing. “Yeah.” 

Behind you, you hear and then feel the hurried movements of his free hand - the one that’s trying to undo his belt, not bothering to feed the leather out of the loops of his dress pants - and you know it’s going to dig into your skin and hurt but you don’t care; are so far past caring that it should be concerning because he’s a stranger and even though he’s attractive and you want him so bad that it hurts it still doesn’t mean you should trust him. Before you can even consider changing your mind or even letting it function long enough to form a critical thought, he’s turning your head and kissing you - hard and aggressive and messy. 

He pushes his tongue into your mouth as he pulls down his zipper, then works his cock out of his boxers. You lean away, look just in time to see him do it, thick and leaking precum, heavy and curving in his fist in a way that has your muscles locking, legs buckling just enough that if you weren’t being held by him, you would have stumbled. The atrophy is only worsened by the palm that moves across your hip and along your pubic bone, then between your legs. The first substantial touch of the night, a sensation that’s not nearly enough yet too much in a way that has you squirming - not sure if you’re trying to get away or get closer. Your legs spread to accommodate him, your calves dangling on either side of his thighs in a way that has your muscles shaking, your entire existence suspended from him like the moments before a star explodes. 

It’s overpowering. Everything. All of it. 

Asphyxiating, your muscles pliable, his watch - expensive looking and moving with every motion of his hand- reflecting in the low, blue light of the room. It should be uncomfortable, the way he’s got you positioned, and it kind of is as his hips grind into the cradle of your thighs, but it’s electric - spreads through your body like kerosene - 

“You look so fuckin’ pretty like this. Gotta be inside you, baby.” He grunts, fingering the thin strap of your underwear. Then there’s the sound of something tearing and you barely have the time or coherency to protest, to tell him that ‘hey, those were expensive’ before the fabric is falling between his knees and onto the floor. 

_Jesus, it really is just that easy he thinks._

You could melt and become one with his praises. Your clit throbs every time he speaks, enunciated by the hoarse drag of his voice. 

“Come on.” You whine as you lift your head to look at him. “Fuck me like I know you want to, Steve.” The ache of it hurts, makes you twist your hips and try to shift your weight in an effort to relieve just a little bit of it, a sentient sort of vibration that is torturous with its intensity - angry with nothing to relieve it. 

The agent lifts your hips, keeping you in place, rendering you unable to do anything other than take it - completely at his mercy, even as he pushes in with one long, slow stroke, the tethers of his own self-control beginning to break. A soft whine of pleasure and relief springs from your lips and you tilt your head back on your own accord, leaning against his shoulder, squeezing your eyes shut as he bottoms out and he’s -

_He’s fuck -_

He’s _big_ , more than that even because he makes you feel full - like you’re about to split right open, stretched and taut and trying not to buck backwards or away and there’s something hopelessly, helplessly erotic and carnal about the way he curves against your back, his hips bucking, his thighs flushed to the back of your own. 

You keep your head against his shoulder, the air coming out of your lungs in short bursts against his neck, choking on the sounds of your own pleasure. 

“Fuck, baby.” Steve grunts, voice hot against the shell of your ear, his sinful words punctuated with a few slaps to your ass. He rubs away the sting, coos in your ear about how well you take him, then does it again; groaning lowly at the way your cunt flutters around him.

Sweat beads at the pinpoints your body’s connect - his shoulder to your back, forearm arm now wrapped around your middle, fingers digging into your waist, his other hand back to your neck, squeezing lightly, the warmth of your combined efforts heady and smoldering,

He’s close, every thrust drawing out keening and breathless sighs of pleasure from deep within your chest. He thrusts into you with a new found ruthlessness, driving in and out of your pussy, almost unbearable in its intensity. 

“Please, Steve…” the words tumble from your lips without any forethought. You have no idea what you’re asking for; what exactly you want from him. You’d take anything, really. Just something that makes him more solidified; keeps him grounding to the space in front of you, keeps him doing _that._

Steve shushes you like he would a creature, strokes your hair in an act of affection that has your heart feeling as if it could burst with the influx of emotion that suddenly rushes into it - weird and heavy and far too comfortable taking up residence in your chest for being induced by a stranger. 

Thoughts, incoherent and scrabbled, tumble past your lips - broken and nearly incomprehensible - without filter. There’s so much you need that you can’t find the words to voice.

“Steve, I’m gonna-” He must sense that in your voice, or at least a little bit of it, or maybe he’s just as high-strung as you are because he finds the bundle of nerves between your legs and rubs it in tight little circles and suddenly your entire abdomen feels tight, your muscles trembling and your pussy clenching around him in a way that must fucking hurt because you can’t control yourself anymore - overwhelmed, unable to make any noise at all as the world goes hot and white and _blinding._

He doesn’t fucking stop either, keeps going until you’re a mess against him - weak boned and limp, supported only by his chest and nothing else and the noises you make are harsh now, flashing flares of venomous pleasure shooting up your spine in-between every agonizing wave of hyper-stimulation. Your hips rock forward against his hand shamelessly. It’s overwhelming - too much all at once and you find that the world has suddenly started to melt, indistinct and waxy. Your back arches and your muscles tense, your legs trembling. Shivers wrack your body, one by one, leaving you shaking in his arms as his tempo falters, the buzzing of his charged, low voice bringing you back. He says something - gasps it, actually - before going still and then slumping backward against the sofa. 

The room is still. Quiet. And you blink. 

Music filters in from the hallway. Your’s has stopped. 

Steve is careful with his movements, shifts his hips in a way that has you both groaning until he’s no longer inside you. You’re helpless to do much more than let him maneuver you, only able to hum in response when he begins to talk. 

“What time do you get off?” 

You resist the urge to be a smart-ass, grinning a little to yourself in contented and exhausted amusement. “My shift ends at two.” 

Steve pushes some of your hair away from your face, an act that should tell you a lot, but your sludge brain is too unfocused to settle on. “Mind if I take you home?” 

God, you’d let him do anything to you. 

“I don’t know…can’t let anyone know I play favorites.” You joke, looking up at him, then following it by smoothing down his hair, growing a little more serious when he gently takes a hold of your wrist. “And you did rip my underwear…but I’d like that.”


	5. lover be good to me | Horacio Carrillo x Fem!Reader

“Are you okay?” You sit down in front of Horacio and tap your fingers against the side of your ceramic mug, looking at him with an expression you hope doesn’t betray your true emotions. 

The plate you sat down in front of him ten minutes ago is growing cold, untouched with its contents uneaten. Initially you think it’s the food itself; the meal you made isn’t one of his favorites and he had gotten home late, so it had sat to keep warm on low heat for a while. But he usually eats whatever you put in front of him, offers a little smile, then tugs you into his lap by your hand.

Or maybe he just isn’t hungry. You doubt you’d have much of an appetite if you dealt with what he does every day. In the first few years of your marriage, it wasn’t uncommon that you’d be eating alone. He had been working his way up the ranks, and seeing things that add color to your nightmares. After awhile he got good at steeling himself, blocking the images out so that he can live a somewhat normal, peaceful life without being haunted by his job; so that he can eat without feeling sick to the stomach. 

Colombia is where his life is: where you are. He’d do anything to protect it. To make it safe. That means swallowing the bile that creeps up his throat; that means becoming a different person. 

Except he would have told you, instead of letting you sit here and wonder. He’s good at talking to you like that; at understanding you aren’t a mind reader. He’s never really had in depth, full conversations with you about it, but you at least know when something is up because he confides in you just enough to ease the strain on his shoulders. 

But he isn’t now. 

And you have no idea why. 

“I’m fine, mi amor.” 

He paused for too long, took a few more beats to answer than you’re used to; his mind is elsewhere, off in some place you can’t reach. You want him to look at you, to say what he’s really thinking, but you can’t push him either. It’s a delicate balance, knowing when to ask and knowing when to let him be. You don’t want to let him suffer in silence, but you also don’t want to upset him. When he gets home from work, he likes _being_ home. Your house is a refuge. It was difficult enough finding a safe area to live, with neighbors that weren’t scared, so to drag all that work shit with him would ruin your efforts to make living here somewhere you can just be with each other. Even with all the locks.

You don’t believe him. You know he’s only saying it to placate you. This isn’t something either of you enjoy. It seems that recently his days are getting harder than ever. The closer the Colombian and American governments get to catching Escobar, the more shit goes wrong, and the mess it’s created gets more complicated. There’s no way he’s ‘fine.’ 

“You can talk to me, Horacio…” 

“Is there anything to talk about?” He immediately volleys back, meeting your gaze for the first time since you both sat down. His tone holds an edge to it: like he’s losing his patience. You can’t tell if he’s being like this on purpose or not. He’s not ignorant to much, if anything at all, especially when it comes to your relationship. He must know what you really mean, and that what he’s doing is cruel. Whatever frustrations he’s withholding are bubbling to the surface, making him tense and unkind. You don’t see this side of Horacio often; enough to know that it’s there, and that he’s capable of things you’d never dream of doing: the part of him he keeps contained for sicarios; for interrogations and shoot-outs. It’s a part of him, and you love the whole of Horacio, but you wish he’d put his magnifying glass away. You aren’t looking to use any of his vulnerability against him. 

“Don’t be like that.” You set your cup down and reach out for his hand, placing your palm over his own. “We don’t have to talk about work, but you can’t just sit there in silence and not expect me to wonder why.” 

Carrillo purses his lips and looks down at your joined hands, watches as your ring catches the kitchen light. He’s surprised you ever agreed to marry him. He was (is) too determined, worked and still does work all the time. His life was regimented, even more so than it is now. He wasn’t exactly the type of guy that could give you the romance he’s sure you were looking for. But you stuck around anyway; weren’t bothered by the distance and time spent apart. He knows you must have been lonely, and that loneliness came to a head when you had rough patches; arguments that were sure to leave your throat raw, certain that it was the end of things forever. It was worth it, though, in your eyes because he made sure to let you know how much he loved you in the time between. How much he appreciated you. Every free moment he had he offered to you. 

Things are different and somehow the same. He’s just as dedicated to you as he was back then, but his job is taking more and more of him now; he’s continuing to sacrifice little bits of himself to catch Escobar and you resent him for it. Resent that he can’t just remove himself from the conflict. That he had to be proud and angry and so _fucking stupid_ as to get himself involved in ‘The War on Drugs,’ whatever the fuck that even means; filled with talk of extradition and prohibition and other shiny, flashing buzz words that grab the attention of people but ultimately lead to very little. He’s got to be on the front lines of it, got to ‘play too rough,’ to catch Escobar and put a bullet in his head. Who gave him the right to be that ambitious? Who gave him the right to sacrifice _you_? 

“I don’t want to talk about this.” 

“Talk about what, Horacio? _We aren’t talking about anything_.” 

Horacio looks at you, his expression set. You’re beginning to get frustrated with his abstruseness. What happened to the man you could talk to? Where did he go. And who took him from you. 

He wonders, watching as you get up and grab his plate, throwing its contents into the trash with movements far too aggressive to mean anything good, if you’d still love him if you knew who he really was; not the man he lets you see, but the one he keeps tucked away. He fears the answer is no. He’s a murdered; sure the legality of it is vague, and he was acting in the best interest of the Colombian government as an extension of it, but deep down is that the truth? Did he push two men out of a helicopter for _justice_? 

“I don’t want to argue with you,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, then squeezing his eyes until dots paint the back of his eyelids. 

You stare at him in front of the sink in disbelief, somehow caught between pitying him and wanting to throw the dish at his face. “ _I don’t want to argue either_ ,” you scoff, tossing the plate into the sink so carelessly that it clatters against the metal as it spins, filling the tense silence with abrasive noise. 

“You’re breaking dishes now?” Horacio leans back in his chair and crosses his arms, clenching his jaw in mounting annoyance. He can feel it building; the yelling that’s sure to come, sure to reach a crescendo that’ll leave you both wondering why the hell you’re still doing this. Maybe he does want to argue. To blow off some steam. 

“It didn’t break, Horacio,” you grit, lifting the item for emphasis. In an act of impulse, you raise it higher before sending it smashing to the floor; pieces of white porcelain flying around your feet like a landmine exploding in mud. “There. Now it’s broken.” 

Horacio flies to his feet with enough force to send the wooden chair he was sitting in careening backwards. It scrapes harshly against the floor, then tips on its feet for half a second when it catches a piece of glass before righting itself. You watch it as he approaches you, filled with sudden anger. 

“Can’t fucking stand you sometimes, do you know that?” He grabs you by the hips, breathing heavy, frustration quickly overcome by something else. His fingers dig into the flesh of your waist, oppressive as he presses you against the counter, trapping you between the cold granite and his body. Carrillo looks down at you as if he’s waiting for an answer, but you both know his question is rhetorical. You feel the same way. Some days he makes you want to scream at the top of your lungs until you pass out. There are things about him that bother you, just as there are things about you that bother him. No relationship is perfect and yours is certainly being tested. 

“You think living with you when you’re like this is any better? Get a fucking grip.” You bite back, staring up at him, just as defensive and worked up as your husband is. 

The clock you hung on the wall when you first moved in ticks, quiet and usually unnoticeable. It’s simple; silver with black hands. You received it as a wedding present from his parents so that you ‘ _never take for granted the time you have with each other_.’ You hear it now only because you’ve both become frozen; statues facing each other, locked in internal struggle. There are reasons you love him. There are reasons he loves you. Life won’t always be like this, and when Horacio steps out the door tomorrow morning, there isn’t any guarantee that he’ll be back to crawl into bed that night. 

Horacio leans down and kisses you, heated and filled with fury. You brace yourself on his biceps, squeezing into the muscle like he squeezes your hips. He wins power over you easily, so overwhelming you gasp into his mouth, unable to breathe through your nose. You’re tempted to shove him away. This isn’t how things weren’t meant to go. There’s a serious discussion you need to have about his job, about this life, about your life and how you feel like any day now you’ll get a phone call from some government agent with the unfortunate job of telling you that your husband is dead. How that feeling mounts with the ticking of your kitchen clock. 

But you let him do what he wants instead because it’s so much easier. It’s so much easier being able to touch Horacio, to feel him, to get lost in him than to think about losing him because of course it is; of course you’d rather be doing this than crying at the table. 

“Please, Horacio…” the words tumble from your lips without any forethought. You have no idea what you’re asking for; what exactly you want from him. You’d take anything, really. Just something that makes him more solidified; keeps him grounding to the space in front of you, _alive._

Carrillo shushes you like he would a creature, strokes your hair in an act of affection that has your heart feeling as if it could burst with the influx of emotion that suddenly rushes into it. Part of you doesn’t like that he can just melt away your anger like that. The other part is immensely grateful for it. Any time spent doing anything less than loving him is time wasted. You have no idea how much of it you have left to do it. 

And you shattered a plate. 

He lifts you by the back of your thighs and places you on the counter top, stepping between your legs. Hands, callused from years of shooting guns and combat, glide down your thighs. He stops mid-way down, presses his thumbs into the soft flesh as he continues to kiss you, then continues his trek until he reaches your calves. Carrillo startles you by sinking to his knees. He enjoys the way you let him touch you with worn palms and corrupted fingers. You must know to some extent that there are situations where he has to do what he must. There’s blood on his hands. Deep red. Never able to be washed away. And yet you preen underneath his ministrations, gasp and shiver and look at him without so much an ounce of hatred. Frustration, maybe, but he knows its borne out of concern for him; all of your fury is seeded in your concern, never insidious. Looking up at you now, he expects the faces of every hostile narco he’s ever encountered to be reflected back. But your expression is open, gentle and waiting. He’s overcome with guilt, knowing he doesn’t deserve you or your tolerance. You’re a saint and he’s the sinner falling to at your feet. 

He doesn’t look away as he reaches for the waistband of your shorts and drags them down, the soft cotton following easily. He releases the fabric and they drop to the floor, immediately forgotten. Carrillo watches you as he works his way up your legs, alternating between nipping and kissing, leaving splotches of purple on your calves, then next to your knee, before finally reaching your inner thighs. You feel like you’re standing too close to a campfire; his breath oppressively hot; caught between the relief that will come when he finally does something and the way he just hovers like smoke. “Don’t make me beg.” 

“Nunca. Te daré lo que quieras,” Horacio coos, so close to where you need him that it’s tormenting. Tentatively, gentle, he mouths your cunt through your panties. You lean your head back against the cupboards and buck your hips as much as the counter will allow, muted pleasure buzzing through your nerves, making your heart beat like a little bird trapped inside a cage. 

Horacio is in no hurry. He lets you grind against his face, lets you squirm and writhe for more, but he takes his time. Slowly, his hands crawl from your hips up and under your shirt, fingertips cool against your heated skin. He slips his hands inside your bra, cupping your breasts and pinches your nipples, playing with the weight of them as he eats you out. 

An ache settles in your stomach and blooms throughout your body. He’s giving you exactly what you need and nothing all at once. You hands begin to sweat with how hard you grip the granite, and your need for more mounts. Just when you’re about to plead for more, he removes himself from you entirely. 

You whine, your displeasure evident, but then he’s tugging your underwear down and discarding them with your shorts. Your breath hitches as he maneuvers himself between your legs again, delicately resting your calves on his shoulders. Staring down at the top of his head, the urge to run your fingers through his hair, to mess up those slicked back curls, is overcoming. His mouth, that just minutes ago had been curled into a sneer, kisses you sweetly. Your kitchen is suddenly alive with the noise of him fucking you with his tongue, almost inaudible over the sounds of your breathless moans and choked gasps of his name. 

Pressure in your belly begins to build as he runs his tongue languidly between your folds, swirling it just above your clit, enough to give you a taste of the bliss he was depriving you of earlier. You’ve been wound up tight since before he got you naked, high strung and close to breaking. It’s almost embarrassing now how close you are to coming and he’s hardly done anything yet. 

Carrillo hums against you, eyes closed, reaping just as much pleasure from this as you are. His cock strains against his slacks, precum turning the tan pants a slightly darker shade from where it leaks through his boxers. Tightening your grip in his hair prompts a groan, low and deep from within his chest. It vibrates against you, just as sinful as his long, slow licks up your slit.

“Horacio-” you choke on the syllables, tongue heavy in your mouth. 

“I know,” he murmurs, full of pity, yet sounding almost smug. “Tell me what you need.” 

Thoughts, incoherent and scrabbled, tumble past your lips - broken and nearly incomprehensible - without filter. There’s so much you need that you can’t find the words to voice. You need him to stay safe. You need him to continue loving you. You need him to look at you like he always has instead of letting his fucking job ruin you. You need him to kiss and hug you and tell you everything is going to be okay, that eventually it isn’t going to be like this. You need so much you could burst with it. 

“Need you- _fuck, Carrillo_. Need you to fuck me.” You whine, high pitched, filled with longing. This is the worst part of loving him; the way you miss him when he hasn’t gone anywhere yet. Your mind betrays nearly every moment you have with him by making you think of how they won’t last. That they have an expiration date. So you hang onto every interaction with him, even and especially the bad. 

You don’t have to ask twice, though, Horacio rising to his feet. He kisses you and you can taste yourself on him, making you both moan. He’s tense with anticipation, taunt beneath your fingers as you run them along his stomach, then dip so that you can undo his belt. Horacio leans away to assault your neck, immediately seeking your pulse, smirking against your neck at the feel of its staccato rhythm. “So eager for this cock,” he mutters, sucking at the underside of your jaw. “Just can’t wait for it, can you?” 

You’d come up with some smartass response if you could speak; not to mention that he’s right. Carrillo slips his fingers into you while you shakily work on getting him out of his pants, pumping his fingers with just as much deliberation as his tongue. The pad of his thumb brushes against your clit, you jerk, gripping his belt until your knuckles turn white. “ _Holy shit, baby,_ ” you breathe, trying to refocus your vision. 

“Of course you like my fingers inside of you,” he teases, arrogant and pleased. “I could make you cum just by doing this, couldn’t I?” You don’t have to answer because you both know that he has before and can very well do it again. He just likes the way you look at him, debauched and under his submission. Horacio emphasizes his words by curling them, finger-fucking you harder. You pant, return to his slacks and quickly unzip them then reach inside to pull out his cock. If he wants to play this game, you will too. 

He trembles when you brush your thumb along the tip, then braces himself with his free hand against the counter. His head falls to your shoulder and his lips brush against it lightly, panting in short bursts. “Eres malo,” he grunts, bucking into your touch. 

“Just playing fair, my love.” 

You rock into each other like this for a few long, agonizing minutes. Pressure, all consuming and powerful, makes your movements falter. If he’d just flick his wrist a certain way, you’d be sent careening over the edge, tumbling down a spiral of white-hot euphoria. 

Then he does just that. 

Your head falls back, body shaking as its undulated with waves of arousal so overwhelming that it makes your eyes water. Horacio works you through it, gasping when your hand tightens around his erection. He nearly comes just at the sight of you; rapturous and divine. You’re always so good for him; so good to him. 

When you go slack, he carefully removes himself from your core, shushing you when you shake from over stimulation. He peppers your cheeks and forehead in kisses, murmuring about how beautiful you look. This is a sight he’ll never get tired of. 

“Open your mouth,” he instructs after a beat, bringing his digits to your face. You do as your instructed, looking at him hazily. He places his fingers on your tongue, his lips parting as he stares back, gaze just as clouded. “Suck.” 

Your breath hitches, your cunt fluttering at the command and authority in his voice. Eager to please, you suck yourself off his fingers until they’re clean. Cock still hard in your hand, you begin to pump your palm against his shaft again, this time with renewed purpose. It’s empowering knowing you can weaken him if you wanted to; that a man as authoritative as he is had sunk to his knees before you. Horacio must make the connection because he removes his fingers and grips your hips, looking between your bodies. 

He comes, coating your leg and hand in strings of pearly white. You don’t stop until he’s gently swatting away your hand, swaying slightly. Pleased with yourself, you lift your hand. “Suck.” 

Horacio blinks, his adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. Delicately, he grabs your wrist and presses a tender kiss to the inside of it, then licks. He watches you watch him, your pupils blown, following him as he cleans himself off of you. Filled with the urge to taste him too, you tug your arm away and bring him close by his shoulders, kissing him slow and deep. 

The clock continues to tick, counting the seconds. Counting down something else. 

What? 

“I’m sorry, mi amor.” 

“I know.”


	6. my love is a planet/revolving your heart | Horacio Carrillo x Fem!Reader

The office clock ticks rhythmically with every second that passes, broken up by the muted whirling of the ceiling fans as they turn almost imperceptibly counterclockwise on the ceiling. 

Colombia is quiet - outside orange streetlights glow in narrow cones on the sidewalks, humming, straining with electricity as the bulbs fight to keep the pavement lit and if he really listens, he can hear the faint footsteps of heels against the concrete, the soft sounds of giggling and the low baritone of the voice that follows. Somewhere further down the block, someone is closing their car door, swallowed almost by the sound of a dog barking. A breeze pushes against the building and flows through a draft near the ledge of the window, pushes through the double paned glass and brings with it the smell of damp earth and wet asphalt; leftovers of an afternoon storm. The air is cool, calm. Waiting to be born again tomorrow morning into something more alive - more chaotic as it simmers in the heat of the sun. 

His men have gone home, back to their wives or families or one bedroom apartments, leaving the office silent save for these sounds. 

The chair creaks beneath his weight as he shifts, the leather uncomfortably warm from his body heat. 

Carrillo stares down at his work. Its contents blur together into a massive, nondescript monstrosity of a shape, small lines of typewriter font spilling over one another and morphing into a clump of meaningless letters, and he tries to spread them out again into something he can read until a film gathers over his eyes and he’s forced to rub them with the heels of his hands; but even then they are still irritated, his tired gaze struggling to focus on anything other than the sting that radiates through his corneas from the strain of keeping them open and concentrated for so long. The paperwork never ends - just seems to grow and grow in a pile of meeting briefings and documents requiring his signature, clipboards, voice recordings to listen to, notes to take. His palm and the space between his fingers are beginning to cramp with the pressure of the pen he’s holding, having gone through almost everything in one sitting, desperate to put even a tiny dent into the mountain that rests before him. 

The fluorescent lighting isn’t helping, blanketing his work space in a coat of sterile white, making everything around him feel sharp and cold and like he’d hurt himself on it, even the half-filled plastic water bottle sitting at the edge of the desk. 

He sighs, leans back and drags his carton of cigarettes against the wood then taps the bottom against its surface a few times, forcibly packing the tobacco tighter. You’ve been trying to get him to relax on his smoking - or at least cut back, but with shit storm after shit storm constantly coasting towards him with no remorse, the nicotine is the only thing keeping him from going entirely AWOL. He does his best not to feel guilty about it. It would sad - and ironic - that if he lived through this fucking mess with Escobar his downfall would be lung cancer, and he knows you know that too, but you never push. You’re never like that, and he’s grateful for it. 

He lets his mind drift to you and what you must be doing as he lifts his lighter - a small, stainless steel zippo engraved with his initials, a gift from his parents, and lights his cigarette before bringing his wrist watch to his face, blearily reading the time. 

Almost midnight. 

Investigating the life of someone else has made him lose track of his own. The days blend together, hours passing as easily and fluidly as water does lapping up against sand, every one of his thoughts curtailed by Pablo’s taste in music, his love for art, his affinity for silk sheets and young brides and hippos and his fucking collection of classic cars. 

You’ve been good about that, too. Gentle. Guiding him back into his own existence. Making it easier for him to remember that although Escobar is his duty, he doesn’t have to be invariably vigilant - not every waking second has to be dedicated to tracking him down, that he’s going to burn himself out if he keeps going on like this. 

So he isn’t surprised when he spots your shadow first, cast long against the polished emerald green floors, followed by your appearance in the doorway. 

He instantly relaxes. 

“You should be sleeping.” Carrillo chastises, although he’s smiling just a little, flicking his cigarette against the clay ash-tray sitting at the center of his desk, surrounded by notepads and coffee mugs and tape cassettes. 

“You should be at home.” You counter, smiling back. 

He pauses, brings the bud back to his lips and takes a drag. The air goes thick and heavy. 

“There’s a lot of things I should be doing.” He answers, stress and worry coupled in his voice as he sits forward and exhales, one elbow on the desk, pushing his fingers through his hair, the other dangling with his cigarette, billowing with grey smoke. 

You look at him for what feels like a long time, following the tense line of muscle in his shoulders stretch and roll beneath the cotton of his uniform shirt, see his eyes close as he rubs a hand over his face, his breath leaving his body in a reticent, exhausted exhale. 

Then he’s watching as you push off the door frame and walk over to him, plucking the bud from between his middle and pointer fingers and quietly extinguishing it, your lips pursed. You lean against the wood, between his legs. 

Neither of you have forgotten about the plate - some cheap ceramic thing you had picked up while out shopping when you first moved into your house, one of the ones with the grooves on the bottom to keep it from being knocked over as easily,dipped in bright yellow pottery glaze and dotted around its edges by bright blue flowers, the texture of the sponge used to make the design adding a sort of authentic, homey feel. A pretty thing that came in a set of six, the other five still sitting in your cabinets. It wasn’t difficult to clean up, broken into three solid pieces with only some of the powdery dust from its impact really needing to be swept up, but it wasn’t so much about the plate breaking itself than what it meant. What it symbolized. 

Your shattering frustrations. 

His fracturing exhaustion. 

“They can’t wait?” 

Horacio leans back. 

“Not most of them, no.” 

“So you’re killing yourself here? Instead laying in bed with your wife?” You eye the half empty amber bottle of scotch and the glass filled with melting ice next to it, glance at his accolades hung on the wall. 

He sighs, hollow, empty sounding. “It’s not that simple. I told you they cannot wait.” 

You go to sit in his lap, bringing your palm up to cup his cheek. “It could be. Divide the work. You’re just one man.” 

He grabs your hand. It’s not your fault you don’t know he can’t trust his own men. “I’m just one man in charge of everything else. _It isn’t._ ” 

There’s another pause, filled by your heavy gazes as you look at one another, waiting for the other to yield. It’s been like this before - instances where you’re stuck within pregnant hesitations, expecting the other to give in, too stubborn to realize it shouldn’t be about who breaks first.

You’re learning that, though, no matter how frustrating it is. 

“I miss my husband.” You confess, although it’s not really a confession more than an admittance to what you both already knew - what you’ve both already felt, everything about this feeling delicate and intimate in a way that makes your lungs constrict. 

Carrillo frowns, turns his head and kisses the inside of your wrist. “I know. I’m sorry.” He murmurs against the delicate skin. 

“You could have called.” You whisper, breathy and painfully soft, not sure you’d be able to say it any louder and still maintain the fragile, stunned atmosphere existing in the space between your bodies. 

“I didn’t want to chance waking you.” 

You almost roll your eyes. No, better to be up and left worrying.

“I wouldn’t have minded.” 

Horacio glides his hand up your forearm, his calloused palm warm and heavy, the pad of his thumb brushing soothingly across the bend of your elbow. 

“I would have.” 

Your chest swells up and suddenly you’re choking on bittersweet nostalgia - on memories of when your husband wasn’t being stripped away from you bit by bit by some fucking psychotic drug dealer and you’re choking on sadness, on the overwhelming feeling of active loss so you’re tempted to let yourself lean into it - to just drop the conversation even though you know that you need to have it because sometimes it’s easier to let your problems fall asleep quietly rather than wake them by pushing too hard. It’s easier to let yourself breathe. 

Still, you persist. 

“You can’t keep going on like this. It isn’t just that _I miss you_ , Horacio.” 

He knows you won’t repeat yourself - knows what you mean, anyway. He’s been doing what he can, suffering what he must. 

“Please, I don’t want to have this argument.” 

The beginnings of a headache are settling somewhere just behind temples, spreading quickly across his forehead, behind his eyes. There’s nothing more he wants than to be able to do what you’re asking, but he chose this profession, and you chose him. He doesn’t have the energy or the will to fight with you right now. 

You reach up and trace the curve of his brow with your thumb, hoping to ease away the wrinkle that settles between them, and maybe mute the thought that has manifested it, the friction and stress of the situation rising until it’s nearly palpable. 

“I’m not trying to argue with you. I’m trying to talk to you - something I seem to be able to do less and less.” You explain, palm dropping to mold against the curve of his jaw. 

Carrillo looks away, at the folders labelled ‘classified’ in big red letters scattered in front of him, at the doorway, half-expecting to see someone standing in it, ready to give him another piece of information that’ll set the Search Bloc back weeks. 

“You think I enjoy this any more than you do?” 

“No, I don’t.” You say gently. “And I know that you’ve got a job to do, but I’d like it if it didn’t tear you away from me completely.” 

You twist the hair at the nape of his neck between your fingers as you lean forward, resting your forehead against his own and closing your eyes. 

“I love you, Horacio. I miss you. I don’t like sleeping alone in our bed.” 

He won’t apologize again, and he’s sure you wouldn’t want to hear it anyway - not for any spiteful reason, you’ve both got your hands tied, but he’s sorry for a lot of things - for keeping you awake, for worrying you, for stressing you out, but mostly he’s sorry he’s given you a marriage like this - filled with nights spent alone in a house he had picked out because it was the safest - because that’s what he needs to think about; instead of whether you like the view, or what the outside looks like, he’s got to think about whether the locks will hold, whether the windows won’t shatter completely if a grenade or car bomb goes off down the street, whether - God forbid - you can have neighbors to rely on if something were to happen. 

He’s got to think of these things and you’ve got to make the sacrifices. 

“I don’t like it either.” There’s an unspoken end of his sentence, an ellipses, a part that he leaves out that neither of you want to say. _I don’t like it either, but…_

But this is _my job._

But this is _our life._

_But you’ll have to get used to it._

So he masks it with an exhale, an empty and low sound, as if he’s been waiting for too long with too much - not relieved but resigned. 

“It’s been a long time since we’ve been alone.” He changes the subject, sitting back in his seat as you open your eyes. 

“Yeah,” you agree, trying not to feel bad about it. “Too long. It feels like we’re dating again.” 

Horacio chuckles, low and warm and light, like smelling laundry through an open window when the wind carries it through the house, cool and placid. He still looks at you that way - the same way he had when your relationship was just starting, with honey-dewed eyes and a sort of crooked, half-smile, like he wasn’t doing it on purpose, just couldn’t help himself. The same way he’s looking at you now. 

“Except this time your father isn’t here watching us, acting like he wants to kill me.”

Your groan is superseded by your laughter as you shake your head, glad for it but also feeling like time is moving too quickly, too fast for you to really keep up with it. Where had that time gone? Where is it now? 

“Thank God that he isn’t. And he likes you now, it just took him awhile.” 

Horacio rolls his eyes, scoffing. He’s sat through too many tense dinners and awkward conversations to believe that, even coming from you. 

“Yeah, right.” 

He looks at you, still grinning. 

“Yeah, I know.” You sigh, remnants of laughter still in your voice. “But I still married you.” 

“For reasons I’ve still yet to understand.” 

“For reasons I’ll remind you of until the day I die.” 

Carrillo quiets, shifts his gaze to some point of interest on his desk, where one the edges is chipping, maybe, or maybe he’s looking at a stained ring discoloring the wood because a drink had been left to sweat without a coaster - nothing important, nothing that warrants catching his attention - the movement secondary to the thoughts in his head to retreat. You both are aware of the alternative to that sentence. 

You guide him back to you. 

“I mean it, Horacio. I don’t regret marrying you.” 

“I know you don’t, my love, but sometimes I wonder what your life could have been like. If it could have been better.” 

“It would have been nothing.” You correct fiercely. 

“You would have been safe.” 

“You don’t know that.” 

“I know that I put you in danger every day that you’re with me.” 

“Stop it.” 

You don’t even know half of it, he thinks, through no fault of your own. He’s shielded you from what he can, has kept things to himself, given you half-answers when you’d ask why he’s adding another lock on the door, or why there are men stationed at your front and back doors, or 

why do you need a bodyguard to go shopping now. 

Things with work, he says.

I’ve been promoted, he says.

They’ve asked me to go after Escobar, he says. 

He’s threatened to kill you, he doesn’t. 

And it scares the shit out of me. 

“I’m sorry, my love. How can I make it up to you?” 

It isn’t about making anything up to anybody - this is far too complex for that - but he can at least give a little. You sacrifice so much for him, for a life you didn’t really ask to be living, so whatever he can give he knows it won’t even begin to replace what you’ve lost - sleep and sanity and safety - and it probably won’t ever, but he can try to return the comfort that you give him, the peace of mind, the _love._

The kind that has to be fought for - torn from your chests in hissing, passive aggressive outbursts in the middle of your kitchen that burn like acid with each word that crawls up your throats - or falling easily after being pulled gently from your hands in moments like this, when you’re trying to convince one another that your biggest concerns shouldn’t be each other because you both can’t stand the feeling of being a burden, unable to stand the lurches of guilt and the helplessness that accompanies it. 

“Coming home at a normal hour would be nice.” You aren’t looking to make this conversation anymore serious, to be stuck spending a night convincing him that he hadn’t damned you to some sort of anxiety ridden, fearful existence by proposing to you because for all the bad, all the heartache and stress and worry, there are the good moments too - the early mornings, subdued afternoons spent sitting in the sunshine reading, evenings spent dancing on your patio bathed in warm light from paper lanterns he had hung up the summer before. Moments that are perfect, beautiful and real and everything you hang on to when the bad ones come. 

Horacio senses this, wants to protest, and while he gives you a searching look he refrains from saying anything that might carry the conversation backwards. 

“It won’t always be like this,” he says instead, moving one hand to rest at your lower back, his thumb rubbing the soft skin beneath your shirt. “But I enjoy these visits.” 

“I’m sure you do. None of this looks at all exciting.” You turn to the desk, at the files scattered everywhere, at maps with coordinates marked on them like they lead to some fucked up narco pirate treasure, at the crumbled up balls of typewriter paper. 

“Unfortunately even the boring parts are still part of my job.” 

“Good thing I’m here then, huh?” You shift in his lap, draping your arms around his neck. 

“Yes,” he agrees, both palms now molded against your waist, digging slightly into your hips. “It’s a very good thing you’re here.” 

It feels nice to have these instances, tediums between bigger periods in time like the one you just had - insignificant and maybe not that meaningful but sweet nonetheless, where you can be happy, flirt with your husband while trying your best to speak in hushed, shy voices so the nighttime janitor doesn’t come skirting down the hallway, wondering why he’s hearing a woman’s voice so late at night coming from the colonel’s office. 

So you take his face in your hands feeling like a lovesick teenager, his cheeks flushed warm with affection, a little scratchy from a day’s worth of stubble, his eyes soft and for the first time since you got here, free from the burdens that normally cloud them, and you kiss him - saccharine and slow and easy. 

He tastes faintly like the scotch, and his lips are little bit chapped but they’re amiable in their movements, as if he’d be content to just go on like this kissing you - not worried about where it will lead, or if it’ll lead to anything at all, making you feel slow yet hyper aware from his gentle caresses, and his hands when they climb higher, having moved beneath your shirt, are rough and hot and careful - always so careful with you - and you don’t like to think about why even though you’ve got a pretty good guess. Careful hands that have killed people. Careful hands that have curled into fists, become bloodied and bruised and scabbed. Careful hands that sweat around the grip of a handgun, pointer fingers just below the trigger. 

Careful hands that don’t want to risk letting that seep into you, as if you’re something he’d be able to taint, convolute. 

You lean away, then move even further back when he follows, quickly speaking before he’s on you again. “Touch me like you mean it, Horacio. _Please_.” 

“Anything you want, my love.” 

You card your fingers through Horacio’s hair, tug slightly at the roots and try not to get too lost in his answering rumble as his kisses slowly grow in intensity until it becomes nearly desperate, finally indulging in the need for closeness he’s stifled to keep himself from cracking beneath the pressure of work completely. 

Carrillo pulls you closer with a shallow groan, shifts his seat so that you’re right up against the desk, the lip of it digging into your back, but his warmth is seeping into you and through your clothes, so you really don’t care how the wood bites a little into your muscles, coupled with the way his cock is already straining through his slacks, hard and thick and it makes you feel like this entire thing is sort of scandalous. It is dangerous, and even though you know he wouldn’t be doing this if he wasn’t sure the building was pretty much empty, the possibility of being caught does thrill you; makes you grin against his lips, lets him pull you apart piece by piece, his kisses loving and devoted and his hands roaming across your rib-cage and breasts like he isn’t sure where he wants to keep them, wanting to touch all of you at once. 

He rises to his feet, takes a step forward and places you onto the desk, his focus so far away from the papers and other shit that decorates it he doesn’t notice or even really care how they’re being pushed or crumpled or ripped by your movements, desire curling and slivering throughout his body, pooling in his belly, settling itself in his lower abdomen and pressing itself against you, his hips between your legs, the thin fabric of your skirt doing little to fight the hard outline of his cock against your thigh. 

Carrillo keeps kissing you, fingers pressed against the space between your shoulder blades, the other flat against the surface of his desk, pausing only once to check the doorway again as he kisses your cheeks, then your jaw, before descending down the gentle curve of your neck, trailing his mouth down and across your collarbone before sucking a bruise into the skin at the base of your throat, right next to your fluttering heartbeat. 

You say his name, syrupy thick and mellow, inhaling sharply when he rolls his hips in response and hums a pleased, vibrating sound that makes you pull him closer and wrap your arm around the broad expanse of his shoulder while the other goes to his belt, untucking his uniform with a shaking, hurried hand, feeling like it’s unfair that you’ve got two layers to go through while he only has one, his lips slanting against yours again making it even more difficult to focus on getting him undressed especially now that the palm that wasn’t on you is suddenly sliding across your thigh and he’s _\- God - he’s -_

 _He’s making you feel worshiped._ Murmurs of his supplication whispered against your mouth, swallowed by your answering, pitiful moans. 

He has to help you with his belt, lightly pushing your hands away to do it himself, tugging the leather through the buckle and then out of the loops, tossing it haphazardly onto the chair behind him, turning back to you without saying a word, looking so in love with you that it makes your chest ache. 

“Horacio-” His name gets caught in your throat, but it doesn’t matter because he’s talking and he knows. He knows exactly how you’re feeling because it’s the same for him too - this longing, this incredible, suffocating, twinge of remorse and grief all jumbled up and twisted somewhere beneath your breastplates for things left unsaid yet still acknowledged - the terrifying things, the things that bring you here when it’s midnight and you should be asleep but you aren’t because they’re the same things that keep him away and keep you awake. 

“I’m right here.” He murmurs and it’s like you’re drowning in how much he wants you, his eyes raking over you in a way that makes your entire body feel warm, taking in every inch of you with a reverence that makes your thighs tense up and your cunt squeeze around nothing. 

He urges you to lay back, heavy-lidded and following as you do what he says, your skirt bunched around your waist, waiting for him to do something, anything at all that’ll relieve the restless thrumming that’s settled just below your belly button, spreading like an opening fan throughout your abdomen, converting with every second that passes into a dull pounding that makes everything you’re wearing feel insufferably uncomfortable, hyper aware of the way your panties stick to your cunt, and you’re about to say something again, plead with him to move faster, but he’s leaning down and kissing you - placating you - earnest and cloying and you’re just relaxing into it when he leans away, travelling down and down and down your body until his shoulders are between your legs and he’s - **  
**

You open your mouth to say something but you don’t know what. You can hardly think with the way he inches lower and lower, hooking your already spread legs over his shoulders with so much ease it makes you blush. His arms are positioned on either side of your legs and his breath is hot and swirling over the insides of your thighs and the realization of what he intends to do and the seriousness of where and why and the fact that _you’re on his fucking desk_ of all things makes you tremble and your chest bloom in flustered warmth and your fingers curl into the pliable material of your skirt, waiting for him - always waiting - to do something. 

He starts at your knee, with kisses gentle and sweet, works his way up to the inside of your thigh, humming against the delicate tissue nonsensical praise and muses before giving your other leg the same treatment, the same pattern, sucking bruises and nipping at them pinprick sharp before soothing it with his tongue, making you squirm and gasp with every press of his lips, unsure what to do with the overwhelming affection you hold for him growing exponentially in your chest. 

This continues for a long time, hazy and drunkard slow, calloused palms sliding up and down until it feels like you might explode from the tension and you whisper his name, deferential and restive and it nearly makes him grimace in anguish at all the things he can’t do for you, his heart feeling as if it’s been filled with cement and splintered, then shattered completely - the fragile, desperate whine in your voice splitting it in incomplete halves and you think, unsurely, that if he keeps going on like this you’re going to burn up - catch fire and asphyxiate on the smoke. 

But then his thumbs are hooking beneath the lines of fabric that curves across your hips, and he begins to pull them down, tells you to bend your knees and you listen without a second thought, allowing him to strip you of the garment and then they, too, join his belt on the chair and you’re left with nothing really at all protecting you aside from your skirt but its bunched up around your waist like it has been since he laid you down and not doing a damn thing to stop the shiver that makes you shudder against the desk, your heated skin erupting into goosebumps. 

Horacio settles himself and brings his hands to your cunt, reaching out to spread you open. There isn’t time to formulate any sort of thoughts about it or what he’s doing because you can hardly breathe let alone think, Horacio’s mouth hot against your pussy, his tongue dragging over your clit and you’ve been so worked up that it hurts, almost, and you’re left trying to push him away and pull him closer in equal measures. 

Your lungs stutter, muscles tensing, all the while panting and keening and rocking your hips with no real sense of direction as he brushes a spot that makes you moan and when you twist your fingers in his hair he makes a sound that’s nearly a growl, then he has one finger inside you then another, fucking you slowly with his fingers, taking his time, curling them up and flexing his wrist, his watch digging uncomfortably into the juncture of your leg where it meets your thigh but its okay because all of its mingling together and he’s suddenly yanking you closer as if he wants to fucking devour you, looking up at you with hungry eyes and the next few seconds seem to last for entire years, everything so intense already that you flutter around him, helplessly keening. 

He sucks gently, looks up again in time to see your eyes screw shut, your eyelashes fluttering as he puts his whole mouth on you, rumbling rich and low at the taste of it, your brows creased tightly in coiled pleasure. Carrillo groans at the sight from somewhere deep within his chest, his cock twitching, his belly feeling like it’s been filled with magma as you dig your nails into his hair, fracturing into little pieces. 

The words he drags from you are babbling, halfway to a cry or sob, something equally as frenzied in its neediness, syllables of his name and something that might be please catching against the rounding of your teeth. 

“I’ll give you what you need, baby. Relax.” Horacio appeases against your already oversensitive cunt, the pleasure too much and so much that it makes your toes curl until they hurt, like he’s injected gasoline into your bloodstream and made you swallow a match, ready to snap and burst into a fucking supernova, so close to cumming it feels as if every nerve has been stripped to its bear components. 

The pressure against your clit intensifies, becomes sharp and fierce, his tongue circling over and over again, so acute that your hips twitch and he keeps you pinned - holds you down, keeps going and going and going until the world turns white-hot and bright and you’re choking, every breath drawn in fighting against some invisible leaded anchor and fuck - it’s too much all at once, too much after what feels like so long, too much that life can’t always be like this. 

He eases away from you, presses his lips to your shuddering thighs wet and shiny with your cum, deliberate in his motions as he crawls back up your body, soft and pliant and slightly sore, guiding your legs carefully - tenderly - around his waist. 

“I love you.” 

God you love him too. So much that it physically hurts. 

But arousal, harsh and blinding, eclipses your every sense, keeps you from saying anything at all other than his name, moaned pitifully when you glance down and see him undoing his pants and taking his cock in his hand, hard and thick in his fist and you clutch at his back, feeling spun out and delirious as he pushes in gradually, gently, turning your body into a liquid quiver. 

Horacio gasps as if the sound was wrenched from him against his will, and your eyes flicker over him - at the muscles tensing beneath his shirt, the sweat darkening his collar, at his lips, red and raw and plump from kissing you, his shoulders broad and his arms are sturdy and glistening and his eyes when you finally meet his gaze are blown with affection and desire and love. 

And then it’s broken. 

His hips snap forward and you shift a little up the desk, one of his hands moving to cup the back of your head while the other finds your own, lacing your fingers together and you let out a shaky, short, involuntary whimper as he starts to move, getting pleasantly lost in the feeling of being so stretched and full. 

He trails open-mouthed kisses along your neck, curled over you, and the picture of it in your head, of him so big and broad and draped over you like a second skin, makes your cunt clench and rips a groan from his throat that sounds just as wrecked as you feel, his lips dragging along the underside of your jaw, his fingers squeezing your palm. **  
**

Neither of you are going to last much longer. You’ve already been made too taut - too tight and stretched out and resting on the precipice of something, like fingertips pulling back a bowstring, fiery bright pleasure cementing you to his ministrations when his thumb catches your clit, swiping once, your body singing, then over and over again until your shoulder blades are folding against one another as you rock off the desk and into him, his arm encircling your waist, never stopping, working you through every roiling wave and every filthy noise you make until you collapse - falling away from him whimpering.

“You’re perfect. So good for me, my love.” 

His rhythm falters, his breathing hard and burning and shuddering as he holds you against his chest, leaving you to wail against his shoulder, puffing against his neck, clinging onto him like he’s the only thing keeping your grounded and then he shatters too, fingers suddenly in your hair, whispering sentences that you can’t quite make out, adoring among a slew of curses. 

His office comes back in pieces, blurry splinters and slightly out of focus. 

His head tips against your shoulder and both you stay like that for a long while, resting against each other, breathing. You sigh, shuddering and low and content, and he leans back to look at you, his expression open and sincere and it’s the most vulnerable you’ve seen him in awhile. 

“I’ll try to come home earlier.” 

You know that he’ll try. You also know that it doesn’t matter. 

You’re not going to dwell on it. 

“I don’t know if you should. This visit was fun.” You grin, exhausted but happy and glad to be near him, glad that’s safe, and if anything at least he’s here - in this building where he’s less likely to get shot, less likely to do anything other than listen to conversations and go through paperwork. 

‘Yes, until we get caught.” He agrees before pressing a kiss to your forehead. 

You hum in agreement, then start to giggle. You’ll go home with him tonight in once piece. That’s all you can ask. 

“Then it’ll really be like when we were dating.” 


	7. untitled | Steve Murphy x Reader

“You asleep?” 

His voice catches like a splinter of wood against his teeth, so rasped with his own exhaustion after spending hours sitting down that enunciating the words proves to be more difficult than he had anticipated - the movement of his lips and tongue strange after having spent so long keeping to himself, the back of his throat full of gravel.

The embassy had been quiet - so quiet that he could hear the janitor as he went down the hallway with the floor waxer - could hear the ticking of the clock situated across the room, high on the wall in front of his desk. 

The last person he had spoken to was you. Not to explain that he’d be coming home late (you already knew), or to give you information before you heard it on the news, but to hear your speak. 

To close his eyes for a second and relax. 

His elbows on his desk, receiver tucked against his shoulder, his head in his hands, scrubbing down his face, rubbing his eyes. 

You always answer, no matter what time it is, just as eager to hear him as he is to hear you. Staying awake for as long as you can bear to keep your eyes open. Keeping busy by organizing and then organizing book shelves, rearranging pictures, watching the television, working - bringing home piles of paperwork even though you don’t have to just because you want to have it around as something to do, as something to keep your mind occupied in the spaces between his phone calls. 

When he doesn’t get an immediate answer, Steve carefully - _quietly_ \- turns away from the bed and places his keys and wallet on the dresser. Nights like these aren’t uncommon, have been routine since he was a beat cop in West Virginia, working evenings that stretched into even later nights, then into early mornings. It had been the same set of motions - his gun, his badge - change and a few loose dollar bills added to the pile of things that would eventually, when he woke again for another shift, be placed back into his pockets.

Except it’s _different_ now. Some in ways more obvious than others. The currency for one thing, Colombian pesos intermixed with American dollar bills. Policarpa Salavarrieta’s face juxtaposed to Andrew Jackson’s. Silver coins blending in with one another. His gun is different, too, and so was the training needed to be able to carry it, failure to pass the course the biggest reason for Academy dismissals. But he had made it - and now he pulls a Glock 17 from his waistband every night - turns on the safety but never unloads it. It won’t stay on the dresser. He’ll put it there for now - where it catches against the streetlights streaming in through the windows - but when he’s ready for bed, he’ll bring it with him, place it on the nightstand or maybe on the windowsill behind the bed. Somewhere easily accessible, a distance in which he doesn’t have to reach far for it, just in case. A newly developed precaution.

A _difference_.

A fresh set of circumstances bending and altering the cultivated schedule of four years spent living the same night.

He’s older now. His joints and back and knees aren’t what they used to be, and he is getting tired. It was different when all he did was sit in a parked cruiser, occasionally watching another car go by, filled with a strange patriotism that made him want to join the DEA, move on to more ‘exciting’ ventures.

A privileged, ignorant kid’s stupid fucking idea of glory.

These are the quieter changes, the subtle shifts. He isn’t arrogant enough to think himself wise, or even smart, but he knows better than to think that anything he’s done and will do retains any semblance of honor or justification. The United States has little to no business being down here, interfering with the Colombian government, but that’s what they do best, he figures. They intervene under a noble guise and cause a whole lot of shit for other people to deal with, for reasons varying in ambiguity - some left vague so that it can’t be entirely chalked up to self interest - some spelled out into neat little packets of legislation like the _War on Drugs -_ all of it seeming to shift with mood of whoever is in charge.

And it’s changed him, he’s different. 

These guys aren’t fighting by the same rules, so why should he, right? 

Right and wrong aren’t as clear cut as it once was. He understands now that there are certain measures people have to take that others might disagree with, has been the person to make those kinds of decisions himself. 

Has acted immorally. Placed guns into the faces of more than one man. So maybe he has no moral high ground to be annoyed with people like Elisa, to be annoyed with the bureaucrats and the government and everyone else who gets in the way of him doing his job. 

He’s been trying to get a little better at it after he almost lost his job. Still, it is difficult. 

It doesn’t help that its affected you. 

You.

You are different.

You look at him with more pity, with more worry, and he can’t really stand it because he knows that the reason you’re followed by a constant curtail of anxiety is because of him. He’s the one that dragged you down here. He’s the one that convinces you to stay. To wait it out. Peppers promises between subduing kisses that it’ll be fine. He’ll be fine. _This is my job, sweetheart._

Having conversations with you in the dark when you’re asleep. Things he’d never be able to say to your face. 

“I think I might be makin’ a mistake…” He’d start, much like tonight, stripping down to his boxers, his back to you and the bed. “Every time we take one step forward, it’s three steps back. A lotta important people are relyin’ on me to do my job, but I am just so… _angry_ …and tired.” 

At this point he’d swallow, blink slowly and look up at the ceiling, then down at the floor. 

“I have never been this tired, honey.” 

Steve picks up his jeans, takes his belt out of the loops, folds it into a loose circle. How long this routine takes depends on how long its been since he’s been able to let it all out - as if your bedroom has turned into a confessional, your unconscious mind the screen separating himself and his sins like the one that might separate himself and a priest - his eyes cast downwards, his head bowed, except this time he isn’t in some church in rural Tennessee or Virginia, but in a place far more holy. 

A place in which the only forgiveness he’s looking for is the kind that comes from you. 

“I want nothin’ more than to keep you from this. To protect you from it and make sure that you’re safe…but I’m afraid that by doin’ that I’m pushing you away.” 

He’s on his side of the bed, pushing back the covers, tossing all but one pillow onto the floor. 

“You are my world, sweetheart. I know that I’m makin’ this hard for you, but I don’t wanna have to do this without you, either.” 

He knows that he can. If it came down to that. He’d send you away if he thought that he must. Fight tooth and fucking nail, speed to the goddamn airport if it’s only what you wanted, but ultimately he wouldn’t be able to be selfish enough to keep you here. 

He’d sacrifice his happiness every time. 

Does that make him worth saving? 

Does it cancel out everything else? 

The mattress dips under his weight as he gets into bed. You shift and make a noise of discomfort and it makes him freeze - he stops, watches - resumes only when he’s sure that you’re not awake, that you hadn’t just been listening, pretending to be asleep. 

The contours of your body fit easily against his own, his arm snaking around your waist, the back of your legs against his shins. Steve closes his eyes and kisses your shoulder, genuinely relaxes for the first time since the night before when he had done this too. 

For awhile he just lays there and looks at you as if the last thing he wants behind his eyelids is this image - you in front of him, your face. 

He reaches out after a few minutes, at first hesitantly, then with more purpose, tracing the gentle slope of your arm down your elbow, his eyes following. 

This time you do wake up, at first squirming away from him, your expression condensing into one of exhausted confusion, pushing against his chest and shoulders with hazy and heavy limbs before realizing that its just Steve, that you had fallen asleep despite your intention of staying up for him, and that he’s home now - warm and safe. 

“Shit-’M sorry, baby. I didn’t meant to wake you.” He quickly apologizes softly. 

You take a deep breath, eyes still closed, not really caring - glad for it, actually - having missed him throughout the day, knowing that in the morning he’d have to leave again. 

“It’s okay.” you whisper, taking his hand, your palm against the back of his, lacing your fingers together. “How was your night?” 

Steve has to take a few beats to answer, glad that you can’t see him. 

“It was good, honey.” 

He feels you nod, can sense that you’re on the cusp of sleep again, and so he won’t go into it, had gone with a lie instead. 

“That’s good.” You’re so sweet. So kind and perfect that it makes his heart hurt. 

“Yeah.” He agrees, hoping you don’t catch the bittersweet aching that coats his esophagus. 

“Goodnight.” 

He takes a deep, shaky breath. “Goodnight, baby.” 


	8. ripe and ruin | Gustavo Gaviria x Reader

Blood. **  
**

Then more of it. 

Pools of crimson leaking into the grout of his kitchen tiles. 

House situated somewhere in the hills, surrounded by dark green and the light, foggy grey of early morning mist. 

He’s standing in the oak doorway, looking in. 

You’re at the sink, dressed the way you were when you went to bed, silk chemise reflecting off the light of the early morning moon. In front of you the windows are opened, panes pushed forward and out. One of your favorite parts of the room. Reminded you of something simple, something sweet, the view nearly surreal, looking out into a yard full of lush grass and vegetation, all of it surrounded by trees. You were smiling when you talked about it, pointed it out to him like he hadn’t noticed it. 

It was a reprieve, he had realized. For you. Something you could look out of and escape the chaos of your life.

He had bought the house because of that. 

Anything to make you happy. 

Your blood looks dark blue where it drips from your fingertips, overwhelming him with the smell of rust. It pools near your feet, travels under them. You don’t seem to notice, and he goes to say your name, but he realizes then that he can’t get himself to say it, the words lodged somewhere in his tonsils, caught on the slope of his tongue. 

In your other hand is a gun, and he notices with sickening fury that it’s his pistol, glinting silver and catching shadows as it wavers, your palm too weak and too shaky to keep a steady grip. 

And soon it slips onto the floor, clatters against the tile, and it sparks him into movement, but every step is like trying to walk through heavy reeds, an ocean at high tide, his ankles caught, his body slowing down. He’s too slow, his feet are too heavy, and before he can get to you, you’re turning around, the front of your nightgown saturated in crimson. 

-

Gustavo takes a deep breath, feels the medallion around his throat slide backwards down his chest as his ribs move, notices but doesn’t fully register how it pools in the dip of his collarbone, uncomfortable almost, and constricting, like a rope that hasn’t quite caught the esophagus of man sentences to hang. 

His hand comes second, rough calluses and hard lines scrubbing his face. Then he scratches his mustache, exhales quietly, and blinks. 

The ceiling is dark, nearly limitless looking, a void for which he can project the nightmare still running through his head, the reel of it like the white, quiet blast of a nuclear explosion behind his eyelids. Something in him has shifted, lurking beneath the surface of his conscience. Guilt - is that what he’s feeling - ? - is this guilt - ? - isn’t something he’s familiar with. Anything can be explained, can be justified, if he asks the right questions. Did they deserve it? What would it have cost? 

Did it protect them? Keep them safe? Was it for their own good? 

Yes. The answer is always yes. You need to start thinking more about your family…and about business. To me it looks like you’re handling things very badly. So what if it’s at the expense of someone else? 

So how can he justify what he’s done to you? 

When he reaches over, he expects the sheets to be saturated - hesitant, palm hovering - he can’t will himself to confirm it, revolted by the iron taste of his own teeth in his mouth, nerves painful and aching through his jaw. 

But then you’re shifting, soft shoulder brushing barely, just barely, against his fingertips, skin catching against thumbprints as you roll over, and he recoils - recedes as quickly and furiously as the tide does before a tsunami - feeling like his hand had been singed. 

“Are you asleep?” 

Your voice, soft and filled with exhaustion, with the weight of just waking up. 

Gustavo doesn’t answer, almost doesn’t want to - wants to let you roll over again, forget you had even asked, fall back into unconsciousness because it would be easier and far less daunting than having to speak, than letting his voice betray him. 

A beat. You’re still awake, can sense the tension now. The room filled with the static of quiet - the flow of your own blood, maybe, or maybe you’re just able to hear particles in the air with how still everything else has become - the particles whizzing, constantly moving. Quiet the way only places can be at certain times very late at night or very early morning, liminal spaces in which the world around you feels a little less real and more like there’s this big, incredibly funny joke being played at your expense. 

Gustavo’s fingers graze the slope of your shoulder, lacking their usual finality, their usual confidence. You pretend not to notice. 

“You should be, niñita.” 

You try to find him in the darkness, and can make out the vague outline of his form where he lays on his back next to you, strong features and the shine of his necklace muted by the soft blue moonlight covering the room like a loose powder. “That wasn’t what I asked.” 

“But I answered it by speaking, hm?” He answers sharply, a little more aggressive than he would have if he weren’t so tired, if he hadn’t just woken up from his worst nightmare, a sickening fury like a thumping bruise behind his sternum. 

“Yeah…” You agree, too tired to explain that what you had said wasn’t really what you had meant, that you can sense something is off, that something had happened, that you only just want him to talk to you. 

Funny how language works that way - how people have invented so many ways to avoid the things they really want to say, to disguise them as something else, making them easier to digest. The truth rarely reveals itself. Conversations are just exercises. How much of the truth can I withhold and get away with it today? What is the cost? 

Little things. Easily ignorable. Spread across and waxed smooth. 

_How are you today? I’m good. How are you?_

_Are you alright? Yes, I’m fine._

_You sure? Positive._

_You need to focus on your family, Pablo, and on the business._

_….Are you asleep?_

“What happened, Gustavo?” 

When? Which instance? Just now or when he realized that he loves you too much? 

“Go to sleep.” 

“Don’t be mean.” 

Slow and terrible, something burst. 

“What happened, Gustavo?” 

He manages to say your name, manages to choke out something along the lines of I can’t- when you’re reaching up, grasping the medallion, pulling it down - careful and gentle - into its proper spot, fingers grazing the hallow dip of his throat, then smoothing down the expanse of his chest in a movement so comforting he nearly inhales from the rush of it, from the emotion of it and the juxtaposition of your hand - clean and soft and gunless - against his skin. 

You frown, brow creasing, leaning up on your elbow now, looking down at him, eclipsing this other version of you that almost makes it okay that you’re awake. 

“Can’t what?” 

_Can’t stop this._

_Can’t stop this life._

_Pablo._

_Killings. Bombings._

_Can’t stop hurting you._

_Can’t stop the gun in your hand._

_The blood on the floor, leaking beneath the soles of your feet._

Gustavo doesn’t answer, doesn’t have the self control or restraint to do anything other than grab you by the back of your neck and pull you down into a nearly suffocating kiss, until you’re squirming, kissing back but confused, still trying to wake up, the taste of sleep and despair and anger sharp on his tongue, heavy in the way his tongue glides against your teeth. 

You pull back a fraction of an inch, get the first syllable of his name out of your mouth, your lips bruised and your eyes bright, so different, so much more alive than you had been, than he had seen you, panting for the breath he had stolen from you, one of the straps of your nightgown - clean - slipping down your shoulder, your hair tangled and your skin flushed. 

In step with how this night is going, he doesn’t think about it. Shit - he can’t think about it when you’re in front of him, looking down at him with those beautiful fucking eyes that hold so much for him when they should hold nothing at all. 

Then his mouth moves down, over the column of your throat, teeth scraping, biting down, sucking a deep bruise over your pulse that will be visible days from now - a less than gentle reminder that you’re alive, heartbeat like a tap root, hues of purple and red healing and getting lighter over time - until he replaces it, starting the process over, far too much of you belonging to this grief he can’t seem to escape. 

You whisper his name, soft and reverent, taking his face into your hands and tilting his head up, forcing him to look at you, really look. His eyes, dark and clouded, meet yours with the force of a dying star collapsing inward, the way fire holds something it’s burned. In them you see the concealed panic, the barely contained fury, the frustration, but most of all the pain. He carries the heavy weight well. You’d build a home inside his heart if it meant ensuring it no longer exists even when you aren’t looking, grab a crowbar and pry out the broken pieces, the rusty nails and splinters of wood, then fall prostrate at his bleeding feet, his face a plastered saint. Calling out to him hoping that the blood doesn’t come next. 

He squeezes his eyes shut, brings both palms to his cheeks and squeezes his eyes shut so hard that he can actually hear the ocean this time, roaring loud and angry in his ears. 

“Gustavo-”

“Stupid girl. Silly girl.” He grits, voice heavy and serious. I love you, he thinks, like holding the tip of a dagger to your chest, over your heart, or maybe at the bottom of your sternum where the bone ends and the muscle is pliable, whispering to himself do it. 

Gustavo kisses you again, open mouthed and filthy, pulls you down by your hips and rocks - feeling a shock deep down in his abdomen that what he’s doing is wrong, even evil, because he knows what you’re thinking, what you can’t quite bring yourself to say to him out loud. 

When’s it going to happen? 

Are you going to love me first? 

The thought consumes him, your thought, his desire corrosive on his tongue and he’s unable to help himself, unable to fucking stop, part of him wondering how he had managed to let you do this to him and the other hoping that by some miracle you don’t live to regret it. 

He pushes his hips against yours, breathes into your mouth, a thrill of anticipation and something far more sinister shooting through his belly. Your fingers curl helplessly into his shoulder, acutely aware of the lazy roar of want building in your stomach, confused and a little delirious, knowing nothing more other than that you want him to keep going. 

You should be smarter. 

You are smarter. 

But you don’t want to be so fucking lonely. 

You roll into him, cunt fluttering around nothing. Exhaustion pulls at your limbs; makes them feel heavy and weighed down, and it mingles strangely to create a buzzing like a television after its been turned off with the way your every nerve feels like its been stripped to its bare components. Gustavo grunts, digs his fingers into the meat of your hips, his erection pushing a little harder against your cunt. 

“Fuck, nena.” His words are like catching broken sentences between radio static. Blimping, bumping against the surface of your mind with vague familiarity. Everything sounds so far away, so distant. Open air. Shattered glass. A noise, low and possessive, rumbles in his chest, half-aborted and cut off as you reach for him in the darkness, his movements jerky and borderline violent as he crushes you against his chest, pulling you down, a fistful of hair in his hand as he pushes inside with one, solid stroke. 

You gasp, shiver, forehead against his shoulder, panting against his collarbone, whispering his name like you had been born saying it, like a prayer, and he grinds against you slow and purposeful, his other hand - his free hand - finding yours where its bunched up into a pitiful fist, lacing your fingers together. 

“Oh, sweetheart.” he groans and it sets your heart on fire, overwhelms, makes you nearly sob, your esophagus heavy and your eyes squeezed shut. Everything is messy, a little off-balanced, titled and crooked and abundant with tired listlessness and you can feel yourself beginning to spiral - you just need more pressure, something else, a few swift circles against your clit and that would be it and you no longer care about what he’s keeping from you. Heat settles in the spaces between your ribs, pleasure as sharp as razor blades curling like smoke deep in your stomach and your lips part in a gasp as you shift forward, seeking more. He’s firm beneath you as you sit up and then lean against him, foreheads touching, noses bumping as you moan into each other’s mouths. 

Gustavo reaches down, rubs a tight slick circle against your clit as he fucks you hard; hips snapping upward and he buries his cock inside of you and you shake as your thighs begin to tremble and he’s not sure if he can take much more of this; not with the obscene slick slide of your bodies already so fucking filthy and the dull sound of skin against skin and your whimpers - sounding so strung out and high pitched and hungry for him - already so overwrought and strained you can barely contain it. 

“Please.” A puff of hot air against his face, your voice serrated with desolation so tender he has to fight from giving in to the mounting pleasure building up in his stomach like a blocked stream. “Please, please, please, Gustavo.” 

He grins the hell of his palm against your clit. 

You shatter. 

He fucks you hard through your orgasm, well past the point where your body recoils and shakes from hypersensitivity, until a shiver works down the length of his spine with the force of a jolt of electricity, the clenching grip of your cunt urging him on until - .

The moments that follow are surreal, like the hands of men and women in paintings - forever stretched out, curved, delicate and constantly looking for something. 

“What happened, Gustavo?” 

“A bad dream, niñita” He carefully unravels himself from you, loosens his fingers, rubs the ache in your skull away. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

Stupid girl. Silly girl. 

“No.” 

“Okay…” You murmur, saccharine, gentle. “Are you sure?” 

Gustavo exhales, pushes some of your hair away from your face. “I’m sure.” 

He’ll touch you again but not tonight.


End file.
